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BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES 

OF 

European Public Men. 

Edited by 
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. 



RECENTLY PUBLISHED : 

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 



Vol. L— ENGLISH STATESMEN. 
By Thos. Wbntwoeth Higginson. $1.50. 

to follow immediately 

Vol. III.— FRENCH LEADERS. 
By Edward King. $1.50. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons, . . . New York. 



BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES 
ENGLISH 

Radical Leaders 

v By 

R. J J. HINTON. 
ii 



NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

Fourth Ave. and 23D St. 

1875. 



iio* 



v 






Copyright. 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 

1875! 



Preface. 




HE preparation of this little volume has been a 
pleasant task. It has afforded an opportunity to 
delineate not only some of the most influential 
of Hying Englishmen, but also the popular agitations and 
reforms through which their influence has been exerted. 
For this purpose it has been necessary to carry the read- 
er into a domain little known to Americans, even to those 
Americans who have personally visited the mother coun- 
try. English governing influences are in a great measure 
social, rather than political ; and American travellers 
usually see little of the life of the English people, and 
often know less than they see. Bearing in mind this fact, 
I have tried in each case to link the man and his work 
together, pointing out not merely the personal qualities of 



PREFACE. 



the individual, but his importance as the representative 
of some principle or popular movement. 

Few of those described in this volume are distin- 
guished for social position, wealth, or literary culture • but 
they all have sincerity, earnestness, experience and the 
power to make their influence felt among the people. It 
has seemed to me — an Englishman born and reared, an 
American by choice, service, and loyal belief in the re- 
public,— that the story of these lives was worth telling, if 
only to illustrate the manner in which democratic prin- 
ciples are gradually penetrating and re-moulding the in- 
stitutions of Great Britain. 

RICHARD J. HINTON; 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

THE INDEPENDENT MEMBERS. 

I. — Professor Fawcett n 

II. — Sir Charles W. Dilke . . 25 

III. — Peter A. Taylor 55 

IV.— Sir John Lubbock 71 

V. — Joseph Cowan 77 

VI. — Robert Meek Carter 86 

PART II. 

THE LABOR AGITATION AND ITS FRIENDS. 

VII. — Thomas Hughes 99 

VIII. — Anthony J. Mundella 121 

IX. — Alexander Macdonald ... 142 

X. — Thomas Brassey. 159 

XI. — Samuel Morley I7 8 

PART III. 

PARLIAMENTARY AGITATORS. 

XII. — Samuel Plimsoll 189 

XIII. — Sir Wilfred Lawson 209 

XIV. — Edward Miall 222 

XV. — Henry Richards 239 



8 CONTENTS. 

PART IV. 

POPULAR LEADERS. 

XVI. — George Jacob Holyoake ' 255 

XVII. — Joseph Arch. .... 275 

XVIII. — Charles Bradlaugh. 305 

XIX. — George Odger 326 

XX. — Joseph Chamberlain 347 



PART I. 
THE INDEPENDENT MEMBERS. 



Professor Fawcett. 




BLIND scholar is not so unusual a phenomenon 
in the history of intellect and culture as to ex- 
cite marked attention, but a blind statesman or 
successful politician is so uncommon a character as to 
arouse extraordinary interest. In the case of Professor 
Fawcett there is ample justification for this feeling. In 
spite of all the drawbacks which his infirmity creates, there 
are not a half a dozen public men in Great Britain more 
likely than the member for Hackney to become, at a day 
not very distant, the Prime Minister of that great empire. 
While the Professor cannot be, in any way, considered a 
Republican, except in the same sense as are all advanced 
Liberals in England, yet were it possible to now organize a 
Republic there, Professor Fawcett's name would be among 
the foremost of those advanced for the executive leader- 
ship thereof. He is esteemed so universally a man of such 
wisdom and equitable intention, as to have thoroughly won 
public confidence. A friendly writer says : — 



12 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

"The visitor to the House of Commons, waiting at the 
door of the Strangers' Gallery, and watching the members 
of Parliament as they file in by the main entrance, will no 
doubt have his eye particularly arrested by a tall, fair- 
haired young man, evidently blind, led up to the door by a 
youthful, petite lady with sparkling eyes and blooming 
cheeks. She will reluctantly leave him at the door. The 
British Constitution would be quite upset were a woman to 
invade the floor of the House of Commons after the chap- 
lain's incantation has been heard, even so far as to con- 
duct her blind husband to his seat, so she has to consign 
him to a youth who stands waiting to lead the blind mem- 
ber to his place. As she turns away, many a friendly face 
will smile, and many a pleasant word attend her as she 
trips lightly up the stairway leading to the Ladies' Cage, 
near the roof of the House. The whispers pass around, 
' One day, perhaps not far off, she will take her seat be- 
side her husband and remain there.' And certain it is 
that when ladies have the suffrage, the first female mem- 
ber of Parliament will be the lady of whom I write — Mrs. 
Fawcett. Not one-half of the members of that body are 
so competent as she to think deeply and speak finely 
on matters of public policy, while not the daintiest live 
doll moving about London drawing-rooms surpasses her in 
care of her household, her husband, and her child. The 
two whom I have mentioned are as well-known figures as 
any who approach the sacred precincts of the legislature. 
The policemen bow low as they pass ; the crowd in the lobby 
make a path ; the door-keeper, Mr. White, the most amia- 
ble Cerberus who ever guarded an entrance, utters his 
friendly welcome. The strangers ask ' Who is that?' and a 



PROFESSOR FAWCETT. I 3 

dozen by-standers respond, ' Professor Fawcett.' No one 
can look upon him but he will see on his face the characters 
of courage, frankness, and intelligence. He is six feet 
two inches in height, very blonde, his light hair and com- 
plexion and his smooth beardless face giving him some- 
thing of the air of a boy. His features are at once 
strongly marked and regular. He narrowly escaped being 
handsome, and his expression is very winning. His coun- 
tenance is habitually serene, and no cloud or frown ever 
passes over it. His smile is gentle and winning. It is 
probable that no blind man has ever before been able to 
enter upon so important a political career as Professor 
Fawcett, who, yet under forty years of age, is the most in- 
fluential of the independent Liberals in Parliament. From 
the moment that he took his seat in that body he has been 
able — and this is unusual — to command the close attention 
of the House. He has a clear fine voice, speaks with the 
utmost fluency, has none of the university intonation, and 
none of the hesitation or uneasy attitudes of the average 
Parliamentary speaker. He scorns all subterfuges, speaks 
honestly his whole mind, and comes to the point. At times 
he is eloquent, and he is always interesting. He is known 
to be a man of convictions. The usual English political 
theory that you need not prove a thing right in principle 
if you can show that it for the time works without disaster, 
is one which Professor Fawcett ignores. He defends 
the right against the wrong, with little respect to conse- 
quences." * 

Naturally such a character has had to encounter the 
opposition of the ordinary English Philistine in politics. 

* Moncure D. Conway, in Harper's Monthly, February, 1875. 



14 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

The author of " Men and Manner in Parliament," declares 
that the House of Commons " will not brook a lecture or 
advice from a member whose face and figure are not so 
familiar that they seem to have become as much a portion 
of the chamber as the clock over the gangway or the can- 
opy over the Speaker's chair." # 

After referring to the election of Mr. Fawcett, in 1865, 
to represent Brighton, the same author adds that " at a 
period when the nation seemed to be awakening to the 
desirability of having culture as well as cotton represented 
in Parliament, Mr. Fawcett, like John Stuart Mill, excited 
in the public mind a lively expectation of great things. 
He strove valiantly to justify this expectation by continually 
pronouncing an opinion upon all questions that cropped 
up." This course tired the House, and besides, " Mr. Faw- 
cett labored under the additional disadvantage of new 
membership." 

" But," continues this lively writer, " he is not a man 
who may be smothered in the folds of a wet blanket. I 
have seen him stand for fifteen minutes by the clock over 
the bar endeavoring to finish a sentence which the House 
protested it would not hear. It happened during the de- 
bate on the Education Bill. The Ministry had coalesced 
with the Conservatives in the enterprise of passing a clause 
which was as wormwood and gall to hon. members below 
the gangway. Mr. Fawcett was declaiming in a strain of 
fervid eloquence against the spirit which, he said, had un- 
accountably taken possession of the Liberal Ministry. 
Mr. Lowe, in his customary trenchant style, had, earlier in 

* " Men and Manner in Parliament," pp. 180, 181. 



PROFESSOR FAWCETT. 1 5 

the debate, protested against the unyielding hostility of 
the Irreconcilables, likening them to a herd of cattle 
which, having given to them a broad pasture whereon to 
browse, discovered in one corner a bed of nettles, and, 
forgetting the sweet pasture to be found elsewhere, stood 
bellowing their discontent around this little patch. 'The 
right hon. gentleman has likened us to a herd of cattle,' 
said Mr. Fawcett. ' Let me remind him and the Ministry, 
of which he is a distinguished member, of the fate that befel 
another herd into which evil spirits had entered, and which, 
running violently down a steep place into the sea, — ' 
At this moment the House caught the bold allusion, 
and broke into a roar of laughter, cheers, and cries of 
' Divide ! ' Mr. Fawcett waited patiently till the storm ap- 
peared to have subsided, and then speaking in exactly the 
same tone, began again : ' Which, running violently down 
a steep place — ' Once more the roar drowned the speak- 
er's voice, and Mr. Fawcett stopped, beginning again at 
exactly the same word when a lull in the storm seemed to 
offer an opportunity, being once more overpowered, only 
to start afresh when an opening presented itself. The con- 
test raged for a quarter of an hour, but in the end Mr. 
Fawcett triumphed, and continuing at the word he had 
originally returned to, proceeded, 'Which, running vio- 
lently down a steep place into the sea, perished in the 
waters.' " * 

Mr. Fawcett is declared to be, "for strength of charac- 
ter, political integrity, inflexibility of purpose, and power 
in debate," the " model independent member of the House 

* " Men and Manner in Parliament," pp. 141-5. 



1 6 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

of Cofnmons," yet, it is acknowledged, that having become 
a power there, he has conducted himself with " rare mod- 
eration and dignity." In 1873, he compelled the Glad- 
stone Ministry, after some ungracious treatment, to accept 
as their own, a bill he had introduced relative to Irish 
University Education. His moderate course in that mo- 
ment of triumph gave him a marked popularity in the 
House, which he has retained and enlarged. 

At a subsequent debate this was made manifest " in a 
remarkable manner," when the Professor, having separated 
himself from those who supported the policy of which Mr. 
George Dixon, Member for Birmingham and President of 
the " National Education League," is regarded as the Parlia- 
mentary leader, declared for the Government measure. 
Opinion ran high for and against the bill, and Mr. Forster's 
policy was especially and severely condemned by the Non- 
conformists' votes, headed by Mr. Miall, who declared that 
the Liberal Ministry had " brought them through the Val- 
ley of Humiliation," and who, with Mr. Dixon and his as- 
sociates, almost regarded Professor Fawcett's action as a 
betrayal of public faith. The issue involved was as to the 
continuance of support, by the Government, of denomina- 
tional schools — the radical opposition wanting to allow 
only voluntary religious schools, and secular instruction 
only in those of a public character. 

It has been said of this event that occasions are rare 
in Parliamentary history when a crowded House has 
been so absolutely swayed by the eloquence of a private 
member as it was on the night when Mr. Fawcett made 
clear his intentions in this matter. Mr. Bright has fre- 
quently had great oratorical triumphs, speaking from the 



PROFESSOR FAWCETT. 17 

bench behind that at which the sightless Professor stood. 
But the applause which Mr. Bright's eloquence was accus- 
tomed to call forth came chiefly from one side of the 
House, whereas Mr. Fawcett drew alternately and at will 
enthusiastic cheers alike from the Conservative as from 
the Liberal ranks. Mr. Gladstone himself was quite ex- 
cited, leaning forward with hands clasped over his knees, 
watching the words as they fell from the speaker's lips, 
while Mr. Forster lost no time in declaring that " amid 
the numerous very powerful speeches delivered by the 
hon, member for Brighton, this assuredly was the most 
moving." * 

Of his manner of speech, a critic, not so partial as 
Mr. Conway, says that the Professor " suffers much as a 
speaker from a habit of pitching his magnificent voice at 
too level a monotony of height and in ' mouthing ' his 
words when he desires to be specially emphatic. His 
speeches," he continues, " are rather professorial exercita- 
tions than statesman-like orations." It is added, with a 
dry air 'of witty patronage, that after having overcome the 
Puritan in him, that " there are no bounds to the possible 
heights he might reach in the state if his acceptance of 
office were conceivable." 

Mr. Conway believes that Professor Fawcett's " mind 
has the instinct of leadership ; it is able to bring out every 
thought in a circle of minds. He has also a rare humor, 
enriched by imagination, and has a large repertoire of good 
stories with which to enliven his altogether extraordinary 
conversation. He must be regarded," continued his ad- 

* " Men and Manner in Parliament," p. 147. 
2 



1 8 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

miring friend, " as a type of ' the coming Liberal ' as dis 
tinguished from the democrat of that familiar description 
which approaches demagogueism. All men have faith in 
the fundamental honesty of the masses. The most rigid 
Tory, walking in a lonely place after midnight, may feel 
a qualm of apprehension if he discern a single individual 
approaching ; but if there are a dozen he will feel safe. 
He knows that security, so far as good intent is concerned, 
is with the many. That feeling is the basis of democracy." 
And it is this idea and feeling that Mr. Fawcett seeks to 
embody in his political life. In some respects, says Mr. 
Conway, he " is the most radical man in Parliament, yet 
no man is less servile to the many, none more normally in 
the minority." 

" Henry Fawcett belongs to a county family of the 
Midland Counties, of ancient descent and high character. 
Born in 1835, he is now forty years of age, and his superb 
physique promises as many more years of useful life. 
Fortunately the accident by which he was deprived of 
sight, did not occur until he had graduated at Cambridge, 
which University he entered as a scholar of Trinity Hall. 
His graduation, with the highest mathematical honors, oc- 
cured in 1856. He then studied law and was admitted as 
a bencher of the Middle Temple in 1862. But blindness 
has necessarily prevented him from pursuing his profes- 
sion. That misfortune was the result of an accidental 
discharge of his father's gun, soon after the son's gradua- 
tion, while both were out shooting. Part of the charge 
entered the young man's face, putting out both eyes, but 
leaving him otherwise undisfigured." Mr. Conway says : 
" The father who had looked forward to a distinguished 



PROFESSOR FAWCETT. 1 9 

career for his son, was almost inconsolable, and it was 
for a time feared he would not survive the event I have 
heard from Professor Fawcett's intimate friends at Cam- 
bridge touching accounts of how the blind boy sat beside 
the father, who felt the affliction more keenly than himself, 
assuring him that the accident should make no difference 
whatever in the career to which they both had looked for- 
ward. ' The accident,' he would say, * did not happen 
until I had received at the University the basis of my ed- 
ucation, and fortunately we have the means to secure aid 
from the eyes of others for practical needs. Rejoice with 
me that my health is unimpaired, my purpose still strong, 
and my spirit as cheerful as ever.' He has lived to make 
good the hope he thus held out to his father." 

Henry Fawcett turned his attention to the study of 
Economic Science, and to literary pursuits in connection 
therewith. As a writer on these topics, he ranks with 
Thorold Rogers, and for ability and vigor stands but a 
step below Prof. Cairns. As a teacher, his influence is 
great and his success remarkable. He soon became a 
Fellow of his College and then Professor of Political 
Economy in the University, a position he still holds. 
The Manual of Political Economy which he has published 
has become the standard work of his school. Other vol- 
umes on the Agricultural Laborer Question, Pauperism, 
and kindred topics, prove his thorough mastery of the 
massive materials, which go to make up what Thomas 
Carlyle has designated as the "dismal science." At 
Cambridge the Fawcetts are great favorites, and the Pro- 
fessor's rooms are crowded when the duties of his position 
and the adjournments of Parliament bring him the oppor- 



20 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

tunity to pursue the congenial work of his Professorship. 
His lecture-room is always crowded. 

Though Professor Fawcett is classed among the " irre- 
concilables," and has always assumed the position of an 
" Independent Member," it must not be supposed_that his 
Radicalism is necessarily of the aggressive, " root and 
branch " order, or has in it any of the iconoclast spirit. 
It is based on moral order and convictions ; does not seek 
to pull down, but conserving the good, aims to re-create 
his country without disorder or dangerous excitement. A 
disciple of the strictest school of Economists, he does not 
support all the measures of an ameliorative character which 
are pressed on the British Parliament. Mr. Fawcett has 
several times opposed such propositions, — the most no- 
table case being that of the Factory Health Act of 1874, by 
which the hours of labor for women and children were still 
further restricted. On this subject and that of pauper- 
ism, Mr. Fawcett (whose economic views on population, 
etc., are largely tinged with Malthusian ideas) is not in 
accord with the active labor agitators and their friends, in 
and out of Parliament. Yet his frankness and honesty 
have saved his popularity with the masses, though there is 
a bitter hostility to the cold and theoretical way in which, 
it is charged, he has dealt with this question. Mr. Con- 
way, in the sketch from which so much has been quoted, 
pithily states the sentimental side of the economic argu- 
ment which the member for Hackney gave inside the 
House, and his wife, Mrs. Fawcett, talked outside. "It 
is not often," he says, " that one has to charge large 
masses of the working classes with a deliberate scheme of 
injustice or oppression. But I fear that under the terrible 



PROFESSOR FAWCETT. 2 1 

struggle for existence in this country, the workingmen 
have at length begun to show signs that their instincts 
have become impaired. From them appears to have pro- 
ceeded a demand for a measure which, under the pretence 
of a desire to protect women and children from overwork 
by restricting the hours per day in which they can labor, 
can only result in rendering women unable to compete 
with men even in the few employments now open to them, 
and so crippling that sex still further in the struggle for life. 
The excess in the numbers of women over men in Great 
Britain is nearing a million." 

It is, Mr. Conway writes, speaking in review of Professor 
Fawcett's position, certain that the pressure in the market for 
manual labor (women being denied access to the customary 
professions and many lucrative employments) "has induced 
the workingmen to take this mean way of handicapping wo- 
men in the competition, disabling them from selling their 
time on the same terms as man sells his." 

The argument of Professor Fawcett against the measure 
also rested on another ground than that quoted from Mr. 
Conway's sketch. That was undoubtedly the argument of 
his brilliant wife, who is one of the foremost leaders in the 
women's suffrage agitation, and is also a capable writer on 
Political Economy. In the House, the Member for Hack- 
ney Urged that the measure would largely decrease both 
production and wages. 

" Manufacturers," he said, " showed an increasing ten- 
dency to establish concerns on the continent, where they 
were free from such restrictions as were imposed in this 
country. In Switzerland and Germany legislative restric- 
tions were confined to children, and our working men could 



2 2 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

not too carefully remember that capital was year by year 
emigrating to other lands. 

" The Home Secretary had based this legislation on the 
ground that women were not free agents. If the women of 
Yorkshire were not free agents, how could it be said that 
the women of Dorsetshire and Cambridgeshire were so ? 
If women had to wade up to their middle in agricultural 
work, could they be called free agents ? Let this kind of 
legislation be carried out with regard to factories, and the 
women of London must be included in it, and Parliament 
must decide at what hour domestic servants should retire 
to rest. The Home Secretary said women were forced to 
work too long through the pressure of want, or of their em- 
ployers. If they accepted the first alternative it resulted 
that want was worse than work ; if they accepted the sec- 
ond the conclusion was that employers were tyrannical. He 
ventured to say that this legislation, when it was understood, 
would be hurled back with contempt, and working men 
would tell the house that it had no right to accuse them of 
forcing their wives and daughters to work against their 
will." 

The Trades Unions' Organs and their representatives and 
friends in the House were strongly in opposition to the Pro- 
fessor. Mr. Mundella, a large employer of female labor, de- 
clared it would not derange production, reduce wages, or 
lessen profits, while it was essential to the physical and moral 
well-being of the population to protect those unable to pro- 
tect themselves. Mr Joseph Owen, member for Newcastle, 
Alderman Carter, member for Leeds, Mr. Samuel Morley, 
who sits for Bristol, Messrs. Stanhope, Baxter, Tennant and 
other large employers of labor, supported the bill. Mr. 



PROFESSOR FAWCETT. 23 

Joseph Chamberlain recently headed a deputation to the 
Home Secretary, Mr. Cross, on this subject and emphatically 
represented the same views. Of course the members who 
were elected as the representatives of working men, Messrs. 
Macdonald and Burt, were strong in opposition to the 
economic view urged by Mr. Fawcett, and quite bitter in re- 
plying to the charges of selfish motives applied to their 
clients — the Trades Unions. This debate indicates an im- 
portant fact in the political policy and purposes by and for 
which Mr. Fawcett is governed and acts. It partially 
places him among the " administrative Nihilists," as Prof. 
Huxley has described the philosophy of which Herbert 
Spencer in theoretical polity, and " the Manchester School" 
in practical politics, are the representatives. 

In other matters Mr. Fawcett's position is in the van- 
guard. He has supported, at considerable risk of popu- 
larity among his present constituents, the opening on the 
Sabbath of the public museums, picture galleries, &c, — a 
subject greatly agitated in England. He is persistent and 
consistent in advocating the redressing of political, econo- 
mic and educational wrongs that bear hard on the agricul- 
tural population — tenant farmers and laborers alike. His 
thorough knowledge of law and history comes in good 
stead, when bills for the enclosure of commons, or other 
measures of land monopoly are on the docket. The exten- 
sion of the suffrage to the counties meet his cordial sup- 
port. This measure, a compulsory Tenant Rights act, and 
one providing for laborers' allotments and holdings in the 
Crown and common lands of Great Britain, are propositions, 
with one for better educational opportunities, which Pro- 
fessor Fawcett fully sustains, and which, if ever carried and 



24 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

put into practical effect, will mark a wide sweep of ameliora- 
tive and constructive radicalism. In a speech to his con- 
stituents at Hackney, Mr. Fawcett thus pertinently express- 
ed his opinion on the enfranchisment of the laborer : 

" When a population for centuries had been sunk in a position of 
dependence, there was no chance of improving their condition unless 
one could inspire in them the sentiments of self-respect and self-reli- 
ance. In order to do this it was necessary to make them see that they 
were citizens in a free state, not serfs of the soil, nor the clients of 
powerful patrons." 

There is one other great question in England, in which 
the statesman-like grasp of the blind member must be 
acknowledged. His position on the disestablishment and 
disendowment of the Established Church illustrates the 
many-sidedness of his judgment. In his speech at Hack- 
ney at the General Election, accepting the Liberal nomina- 
tion, Mr. Fawcett gave free expression to the general course 
he should pursue on the leading issues of English politics. 
Among these, of course, was that of the Church. The 
Examiner, the literary representative of radical opinion and 
criticism, said that Mr. F'awcett gave utterance to some 
" peculiarly wise words" on this question. Summarizing 
and .quoting his language, it writes : — • 

" Nothing in English politics, he declared, was more re- 
markable than the new way in which most people now 
look at the connection between the Church and the State. 
' Twelve months ago, Disestablishment was spoken of as 
the distant dream of a few enthusiastic fanatics ; but now 
even moderate politicians speak of it as a change certain to 
come, and the only question is by whom and in what form 
it should be done.' To all men who see how the currents 
of the age are running it has long been clear that Disestab- 



PROFESSOR FAWCETT. 25 

lishment is not only inevitable, but near. Mr. Fawcett 
anticipates that Mr. Disraeli will do unto the Church as he 
did unto the Ten-pound franchise. We are happy to record 
the prediction that the Conservative chief, who, above all 
things, wishes to be considered an extraordinary man, will 
end his career by earning the epitaph — He was a Tory Min- 
ister, who enfranchised the Democracy and disestablished 
the Church." 

" Mr. Fawcett fears, indeed, that the day of Disestablish- 
ment may come too soon ; and his words of warning on 
that subject were by far the most important part of his 
speech. There must, of course, be Disendowment as well 
as Disestablishment, and the appropriation of the funds 
will be incomparably the more important process of the 
two. Now, Mr. Fawcett gives clear warning that, much as 
he would like to see the Church separated from the State, 
he would not vote for such a change if funds were to be 
left to it in the same lavish way as they were left to the 
Irish Church." 

After referring to the extent of these funds, and espe- 
cially the manner in which, by the cessation of the tithe rent 
charge the ecclesiatical revenues will all fall into the land- 
owner's hand, the Examiner says, " Some members, it is true, 
had too much common sense to let so preposterous a scheme 
of spoliation be sanctioned without offering an emphatic 
protest ; and by far the most energetic protest came from 
Mr. Fawcett himself." 

In concluding its comments, the Examiner says : — The 

English Church is immensely richer than the Irish was in 

what were called 'private endowments,' and it may be left 

in possession of perhaps ninety millions of money, if the 

2 



26 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

disendowment should be effected in accordance with the 
existing precedent. Now, it would be positive madness to 
arm any body of clergy with ninety millions. It would be 
hardly less insane than to arm garroters with Martini-Henry 
rifles and disband the police. A body of men who think 
that they are priests, that they can work invisible miracles* 
that they are armed with infallible truth, and that all their 
foes must be the servants of the devil, may be nice amia- 
ble gentlemen so long they are held down by the impartial 
scepticism of the State ; but they become dangerous indeed 
if the State stuffs their pockets with money, and leaves 
them free to do what they like. Hence Mr. Fawcett does 
quite right to warn us that we must prepare a scheme of 
Disendowment very different from that which was applied 
to the Irish Church. The work will be so difficult, the 
prize at stake is so vast, and the day for action may be so 
near, that the Radical party cannot too soon begin to pre- 
pare such a scheme of Disendowment as will make it safe 
to disestablish the Church." 

The future political career of Professor Henry Fawcett 
is well indicated by the road he has so far travelled. He 
will be found radical in all measures that look to the im- 
provement of the masses, while at the same time he will 
be conservative in opposing what may be regarded as per- 
sonal politics. Able, wise and disinterested as he is, Great 
Britain is fortunate in the presence of such a public man. 

Professor Fawcett is the second son of William Fawcett, 
Esq., of Longford, Wiltshire, and of Mary, daughter of 
William Cooper, Esq., of Salisbury. He was born in 1833, 
and married, in 1867, Millicent, daughter of N. Garrett, 
Esq., by whom he has several children. He has published, 
jointly with Mrs. Fawcett, a volume of essays. 



II. 



Sir Charles W. Dilke. 




REAT BRITAIN received, socially and politically 
speaking, a decided sensation, three years since. 
A young, wealthy, cultivated and titled gentleman, 
— one whose father had been the companion of princes, 
and whose name is linked with the fairest aspects 
of later English history — rose in the House of Commons 
and delivered a carefully prepared, moderately-toned speech, 
very level and direct in its argument, and aimed at the ex- 
travagant cost of the Royal Establishment. The act was a 
daring one, and it raised a howl of anger and indignation. 
No other word expresses the feeling which was aroused 
among that portion of the English people to whom the 
newspapers chiefly cater, and who are generally meant, 
when the "British Public " is referred to in ponderous 
terms. 

What made this passion so ungovernable, was the fact 
that the radical baronet, seeing the antagonism which his 
motion to enquire into the " Civil List " expenditures was 



28 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

sure to arouse, had stepped from St. Stephen's and ap- 
pealed to the vox populi in advance. The motion, was 
entered in 187 1; the speech in support was made at the 
session of 1872. Mr. Gladstone had gone out of his way, 
in the speech annually made by or for the Prime Minister, 
at the Lord Mayor's banquet in London, to criticise Sir 
Charles W. Dilke's proposed action. The latter respond- 
ed by canvassing the country. A radical conference was 
held at Birmingham, at which Dilke, Bradlaugh, Taylor and 
others were present. Three resolutions or declarations 
were adopted: 1st, Opposition to Hereditary Legislators 
and to a second chamber : 2d, That the people are the 
final authority, and that some means must be speedily de- 
vised to make that effective : 3d, Opposition to the Bishops 
as legislators. Sir Charles Dilke held meetings at Bir- 
mingham, Bolton, Bristol, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, 
Newcastle, and other large cities. At nearly all of them 
he was met by organized mobs. The supporters of his 
views and the authorities, — though these last were often 
lukewarm, and, in a few instances, openly indifferent to the 
principle of Free Speech — were always strong enough to 
protect the baronet. At a meeting held December 7, 187 1, 
at Bolton, while Dilke was speaking, a concerted and mur- 
derous assault was made, and William Schofield, a peace- 
ful working-man, was killed. This violence defeated its 
own object and aroused the liberal element to the danger. 
An American unacquainted with English affairs would be 
surprised at the mildness of the speeches which aroused 
such bitterness. Sir Charles Dilke's speech at Newcastle, 
on the 6th of November, 187 1, where he was welcomed by 
an immense meeting, was probably the boldest of all his 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 29 

efforts. Yet no more aggressive language can be found in 
it than is contained in such extracts as these. Replying to 
some remark of Mr. Disraeli, about the power of the 
Crown, the speaker said that " the Queen's political con- 
science is of such a character as to admit of her fully ap- 
proving . of everything " — the Prime Minister does. His 
review of the costly anachronisms in the Royal House- 
hold, was caustic enough, but there was no word in it that 
transcended even the limits of Parliamentary debate. He 
made amusing reference to the fact that the Royal medical 
staff consisted of thirty-two persons ; that the Queen's 
private household, numbered twelve persons, as Secretary, 
Librarian, etc. ; that the Lord Steward's staff embraced 
one hundred and fifty-four officials ; the Lord Chamber- 
lain's, four hundred and thirty ; the Master of Horse twenty- 
six, and that the Household Brigade, consisting of Life 
Guards (cavalry) and Grenadiers (infantry) were maintained 
near the Royal person, as a privileged corps, at a great 
cost. He pointed out the fact that the Queen's " Pages 
of Honor " are the only persons allowed to enter the army 
without an examination. He charged that privileged 
corps were demoralizing and unprofitable in armies ; alluded 
to the claim that had been made relative to the abolition of 
certain sinecures, and asked if the cost of these officers had 
gone to swell her Majesty's Privy purse, as they had not 
been deducted from the annual estimates. What seems to 
have most thoroughly angered his antagonists, was the fact 
that he proclaimed himself a republican, though only re- 
motely so. At Bristol, November 20th, 1870, he said: "I 
make no concealment of the fact that I am a republican 
myself." Again at Newcastle, he said : " There is a wide- 



30 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

spread belief that a republic here is only a matter of edu- 
cation and time. It is said some day a commonwealth 
will be our government. * * * Well, if you can show 
me a fair chance that a republic here will be free from the 
political corruption that hangs about a monarchy, I say 
for my part — and I believe the middle classes in general, 
will say — let it come ! " It is very difficult to portray the 
rage which such expressions created. The governing 
classes seem to rest in fancied security when such men as 
Bradlaugh are undermining their power, but a Dilke brought 
name, culture, and wealth, to popularize a dangerous 
cause. 

The London Standard, the acknowledged leader and 
organ of ultra Toryism, gave unreasoning expression to its 
vehement anger at such audacity, while the mild and 
unreflecting Spectator could find no defence other than 
an apology and excuse for what Sir Charles Dilke criti- 
cised. The Standard declared that — 

" The respect and attachment of Englishmen for the 
Royal Family, and their contempt and aversion for libel- 
lers and traitors, will not be silenced by the ruffianism of 
a metropolitan mob. The former finds utterance in every 
newspaper, in every club room, in every home, in every act 
and movement of national life ; the latter may take an un- 
pleasantly practical form if Sir Charles Dilke should ever 
insult a party of gentlemen by repeating in their presence 
calumnies such as he was permitted to utter with impunity 
before the roughs of Newcastle." 

The Spectator could only show, while mildly reflecting 
on Sir Charles Dilke, that in 1738, the Royal Household 
numbered one hundred and ninety-seven officials more 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 3 1 

than at present, saying — " We are strongly inclined to be- 
lieve that — assuming the pageantry of a court to be still 
kept up — a judicious weeding out of superfluous officers 
would be practicable, and would probably bring relief, in 
many ways, to the Sovereign herself. But there is one 
element of singular unfairness in Sir Charles Dilke's mode 
of dealing with the subject. To judge from his speech 
one would think that the Household had been hitherto 
treated as a sacrosanct ark, on which no hand . had ever 
been laid. It would be easy to show that this is by no 
means the case, and that the Sovereign's House, in 187 1, 
however superfluously ample it may yet appear to many, is 
yet of far scantier dimensions than it was, say, a century 
and a half ago." But the radical orator had the facts on 
his side. The " Civil List " formerly embraced the whole 
of the national expenditure other than those for military 
and naval purposes. Prior to Cromwell's day it did not 
exist at all. The king was supposed to provide for all 
national expenditure out of his land and hereditary reve- 
nues, and any extra war expenditure was contributed by 
the various feudal lords, under the conditions of their sev- 
eral tenures. Deficiencies were made up, sometimes by 
forced loans, sometimes by parliamentary grants, which, 
however, were by no means voted as a matter of course. 
The resistance to this method of collecting the revenues 
needed, led to the Commonwealth. The subsequent de- 
velopment of Parliamentary government led, after the 
House of Brunswick came to the British Throne, to the 
more or less distinct separation of the Royal Household 
expenditures, from those which properly belong to 
the Government of the Realm itself. In the con- 



32 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

tests arising over the development of this separation, 
which, like English affairs, has been very gradual in- 
deed, the Royal Family have driven close bargains with 
" their Faithful Commons." George the Second received 
^"800,000 per annum in all, or about $4,000,000. The 
" Civil Lists " of the two following Georges, especially that 
of George the Fourth, were swelled by all sorts of devices, 
the records of which do not form an encouraging chapter 
in the history of ministerial responsibility, and parliamen- 
tary government. The annual total for George the Fourth 
was $5,000,000. In addition to this he received as Regent 
and King, gratuities amounting to $16,000,000, and a large 
sum was voted to cancel his debts. Under William the 
Fourth and the reigning Queen, the Civil List was. nomi- 
nally reduced to ^385,000, or $1,925,000, per annum. 
Its expenditures are directly confined to the maintenance 
of the Royal Establishment. 

Sir Charles W. Dilke arraigned the current estimates as 
not being confined even to this large sum. He showed, with 
a merciless array of figures, that the income of the Duchy of 
Lancaster, ^42,000 net, is added to this total, making the 
Crown income equal to $2,035,000. Besides this large sum, 
however, the nation maintained at its own cost, all the 
Royal residences, Buckingham, St. James, Hampton and 
Kew Palaces, Windsor Castle, and some minor places. 
Balmoral and Osborne House, in Scotland and the Isle of 
Wight, are private property. The Royal family are also 
a charge on the Civil List, and their total incomes amount 
annually to ^219, 515, or about $1,097,575. This sum 
swells the total of the direct Civil List to $3,254,515. 
Other sums more than equal in amount have been expend- 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 33 

eel on the Heir-apparent alone — to pay his debts and 
defray the expenses of his various State tours. The cold 
and careful presentation of this costly show, is what 
aroused the anger which has been described. Mr. Smalley, 
the very capable London correspondent of the New York 
Tribune, under date of December, 187 1, says, "In the 
mere fact that a young and able, and liberal M. P. has 
made a public criticism on the Royal Household, there is 
nothing to explain all this outcry. No single politician in 
a single speech can shake the Throne, or convert popular 
loyalty into popular discontent. It is the restless senti- 
ment behind the orator which makes him formidable." 

The excitement in and out of Parliament, which at- 
tended and followed Sir Charles Dilke's motion of inquiry 
into the "Civil List," is a vivid illustration of one of the 
most prevailing superstitions that exists as to public affairs 
in Great Britain. Mr. Mundella put it in one form when 
he recently protested against a "pinchbeck and tinsel" 
monarchy, and the venturesome baronet aroused its 
more pugnacious manifestations. At the very time the 
Conservatives were inciting mobs to break up the meetings 
called by Sir Charles Dilke, and the press of London 
were indulging in more or less violent criticism of his 
position, the habitues of the clubs and of West End social 
circles, might have heard daily the most scandalous stories 
of the Prince of Wales, with many hints of a nature not 
complimentary to his Royal Mother. It was about this 
time, that Matt. Morgan, the artist, made a reputation by 
cartoons in the Tomahawk, which for their graphic bold- 
ness have hardly been surpassed. The Tomahawk was not 

a Radical, but a Conservative satirist. Yet it gave to the 
9* a 



34 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

British world, without exciting rebuke or anything more 
than a sarcastic smile, designs like the one which, in the 
attitude of the Queen's well-known attendant, John Brown, 
designedly lent wings to the contemptible club slanders 
that were then circulated ; or like another, far more power- 
ful and expressive, as described by Justin McCarthy, in 
which the Prince of Wales, dressed as Hamlet, was repre- 
sented as breaking away from the restraining arms of 
John Bull as Horatio, and public opinion ,as Marcellus, 
and rushing after a ghost which bore the form and fea- 
tures of George IV., while underneath were inscribed the 
words, " Lead on ; I'll follow thee ! " 

Sir Charles Dilke's mode of attack excited anger be- 
cause it was practical. It reached home to the English 
pocket, and though the criticism was couched in the most 
respectful language, it laid bare only the more effectually 
the. absurd anomalies for the maintenance of which 
Englishmen were taxed. The scene that occurred in the 
early days of the session of 1872, when the young Baronet 
rose to speak to the motion he had given notice of at the 
session of 1871, is thus described by the author of "Men 
and Manner in Parliament :" — " The scene was led up 
to, as most memorable outbreaks in the House of Com- 
mons are, in the most unexpected and unpremeditated 
manner. The eager throng that crowded the galleries al- 
lotted to the public looked for something startling when 
Sir Charles Dilke should rise to speak. It had been 
rumored, and the sequel showed that the statement was 
not without foundation, that the Conservatives intended to 
meet the motion by rising en masse, and leaving Sir Charles 
to talk to such Liberals as thought the subject of an in- 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 35 

quiry into the Civil List one not absolutely forbidden to 
the representatives of the people. But the count-out was 
a card held for playing, if necessary, at a later stage of the 
game, and after Lord Bury had succeeded in his constant 
endeavour of putting himself en evidence on every possible 
occasion, Sir Charles began his speech to a crowded 
and attentive House, which, whilst freezingly deprecatory, 
remained politely attentive till the hon. Bart, had brought 
his monologue to a conclusion. Mr. Gladstone, anxious 
to make an end of the matter, followed ; and it was taken for 
granted that the incident was closed, and the strangers 
who had come to see "a scene" remained to mutter their 
disappointment. Sir Charles Dilke had made his motion, 
the Prime Minister had replied, both sides of the question 
were before the public, and to let the matter rest, was the 
evident wish of the House. But it was not to be. As Mr. 
Gladstone sat down, Mr. Auberon Herbert, who, it was 
well known, desired to advocate the motion, leaped up 
from his seat beside Sir Charles Dilke, and found him- 
self face to face with such a storm as has rarely 
beaten against the roof of Saint Stephen's. The 
country gentlemen, famed in parliamentary annals for 
ability to assist the progress of legislation by the utterance 
of unearthly noises, excelled their historic efforts of the 
eras of the Reform Bill and the debates on the Corn Laws. 
They roared and yelled and even hissed, lashing themselves 
into fury as Mr. Herbert stood shouting out something at 
the top of a voice that was utterly lost in the storm. But 
even country gentlemen cannot bellow " Divide, Divide ! " 
for more than five minutes at a stretch, and Mr. Herbert, 
taking cognizance of this fact, husbanded his resources ac- 



36 BRIEF' BIOGRAPHIES. 

cordingly ; and when something, which might by compari- 
son be termed a lull, occurred, he looked up to the press 
gallery, and, by a superhuman effort shouted out two or 
three words that seemed to reach the reporters. Then the 
Conservatives brought up their reserve forces and a sus- 
tained yell drowned the speaker's voice. A few minutes more 
and the hon. member, perceiving signs of renewed exhaus- 
tion in the Opposition benches, continued his speech at the 
very words at which he had left off \ whereupon the Con- 
servatives came back with a deafening roar, and Mr. Her- 
bert resigned the innings to them. But it became clear 
that he was winning the game by strategy. No human 
lungs were equal to the prolongation over an hour of such 
an effort as the country gentlemen were then making, and 
whilst even in the full tide of their vigor, Mr. Herbert was 
getting out his speech by piecemeal, it was too evident that 
when they had shouted themselves hoarse he would come 
up smiling and say all the horrible things he had at heart. 
Accordingly a change of tactics was decided upon, and the 
count-out card was dealt. But it requires two to play at 
the game, and as Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues would 
not lend themselves to the effort to stop free discussion by 
these means, the count-out, thrice essayed, thrice failed, 
Mr. Herbert, profiting by these brief pauses to gain fresh 
breath and renewed vigor. Thoroughly beaten, the Con- 
servatives finally resorted to the expedient of clearing the 
House of strangers, with the intention of preventing Mr. 
Herbert's interjections from being reported. But this pro- 
ceeding did not in the slightest degree affect the hon. 
member's purpose, and amid a babel of sounds, through 
which the shrill crowing of the cock could alone be distin- 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 37 

guished, he continued his speech for ten minutes more, 
when apparently reaching the end, he sat down and the 
ferment subsided as quickly as it had arisen." 

As a speaker, Sir Charles does not appear to have cap- 
tivated the critics of the press gallery. The writer in Fra- 
ser, who discourses pleasantly on the House of Commons 
" Its personnel, and its oratory," says that in "Sir Charles 
Dilke, the visitor to the House of Commons will see the 
influence of Mr. Disraeli's periods and phrases," # # " he 
contents himself with copying the more bizarre of Mr. Dis- 
raeli's alliterations, as when he told the House — as he told 
the Ancient Order of Foresters at Hammersmith last month 
— that the publicans were perplexed, the parsons persecu- 
ted, and the Dissenters disgusted." 

A more soberly stated, if slightly satirical, view of his 
parliamentary appearance and manner, is given in the fol- 
lowing : 

" Sir Charles Dilke does not owe any of the Parliamen- 
tary fame he may possess to the manifestation of gifts 
of oratory. The hon. Baronet is, to tell the truth, a very 
wearisome speaker, and if he had not, as a rule, some- 
thing to say that was worth listening to, he would never 
find an audience. If in any future edition of Mr. Robert 
Montgomery's poems a metaphorical illustration were 
required for the famous stream that 

' Meandered level with its fount,' 

the publisher could not do better that procure a carte-de- 
visite portrait of the hon. member for Chelsea as he appears 
when addressing the House of Commons. Sir Charles 
usually sits on the second or third seat on the front bench 



38 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

below the gangway, but when he rises to make a set speech 
he invariably stands partly in the gangway itself with his 
back turned to his personal friends. The note upon which 
he begins his oration is marvellously preserved throughout 
its full length, and as he monotonously turns his body from 
left to right, as if he were fixed on a pivot, the impression 
he leaves on the mind of the beholder is that the reservoir 
of his speech is ingeniously located in his boots, and that 
he is pumping it up. For an hour at a time the level 
stream, unrelieved by a single coruscation of wit, imagina- 
tion, fancy, or humor, flows out upon the House of Com- 
mons. But the House, nevertheless, attentively listens, as 
far as human endurance can withstand the more than mor- 
tal monotony, for Sir Charles Dilke generally has some- 
thing notable to say, and he has a fearless way of saying 
it which, to those who have souls capable of being stirred 
by the fire of political Knight-errantry, covers a multitude 
of sins of manner." * 

Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, the second baronet of his 
name, is the son of a well known public man, and the 
grandson of a literary critic of large reputation. The pres- 
ent baronet, like his father and grandfather, is the active 
editor of the Athenceum. His only brother, Austin Dilke, 
is now the proprietor and editor of the London Weekly 
Dispatch, a paper which he has restored to more than its 
original popularity and circulation. Thirty years ago the 
Dispatch was the most influential journal in Great Britain. 
W. J. Fox, the member for Oldham, and pastor of the fa- 
mous South Place (Finsbury) Chapel, contributed regular- 

* " Men and Manner in Parliament." 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 39 

ly over the signature of " Publicola ; " other well known wri- 
ters also contributed to its columns. It then passed under 
a cloud. Its former editor, Sydney Smith, a London bar- 
ister, was identified with the opposition' to Trades Unionism, 
and became the leading critic thereof. This destroyed the 
popularity of the Dispatch, which Mr. Austin Dilke is said 
to have raised to a remarkable circulation. He is the au- 
thor of a brilliant book on Russia, now being published, and 
is considered by all odds the best informed living English- 
man on Russian affairs. He speaks the language fluently. 
His brother in the witty brochure " Prince Florestan," which 
he issued anonymously in 1874, describes him as — " Mr. 
Dilke of Trinity Hall, Sir Charles Dilke's brother — but a 
man of more real talent than his brother, although, if pos- 
sible, a more lugubrious speaker." 

Charles Wentworth Dilke, the grandfather, was born in 
1789, of a county family in moderate circumstances. He 
graduated at Cambridge, and receiving an appointment in 
the Naval Pay office, remained there for twenty years. 
During' this time he was a frequent contributor to the West- 
minster and Retrospective Review, as also to " Notes and 
Queries," In 1830 he became editor of the Athenc&um. 
In 1846, he transferee! its editorship to Thomas Keble 
Hervey, in order to take charge of the Daily News, which 
he retired from in 1849. Kis son was born in 18 10. He 
became editorially connected with the Athenceum soon 
after leaving the University. He married Mary, daughter 
of Captain William Chatfield, and their eldest son, the pres- 
ent member for Chelsea, was born in London in 1843. He 
is therefore in the thirty-second year of his life. The father 
was among the earliest promoters of that movement for 



4-0 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

artistic and technical education which has already borne 
such remarkable fruits in Great Britain. In 1844 he urged 
upon the Society of Arts, of which he was Vice-President,— in 
connection with the late Mr. Cole, of the Kensington 
Museum, and Scott Russell, the engineer,— a plan for the Ex- 
hibition of the Useful Arts and Industries. This was the first 
outline presented of the plan on which the London Universal 
Exhibition of 185 1 was subsequently based. In 1846, with 
the encouragement given by Prince Albert, the Society of 
Arts gave its first exhibition. Mr. Dilke was one of the 
active Commissioners at that, the first, Exhibition. He also 
visited New York as English Commissioner to the Ameri- 
can Exposition, and served on that held in England in 1862. 
He several times declined Knighthood, but was created a 
baronet after the last named service. He died in 1869, 
after his son had entered Parliament. 

The latter received his early education under a private 
tutor, and entered at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1862, 
graduating with the degree of LL.B., in 1866. He sailed 
almost immediately thereafter for the United States, on 
the interesting " round the world " journey, which added 
his attractive volumes, " Greater Britain," to the literature of 
the times. The theory, or purpose of the journey the book 
narrates, is in itself a very attractive one, and the manner 
in which it began was quite original. Mr. Dilke illustrates 
the growth of the Anglo-Saxon stock by the spirited ac- 
count he gives of the great communities it has founded. 
He landed at Norfolk, Virginia, soon after the close of our 
civil war, and proceeded through the South, judging wisely 
that he would thus obtain a better idea of the real condi- 
tion of affairs in the States over which war had swept like 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 4 1 

a fierce wind. The- chapters in which the South is de- 
scribed, constitute one of the fairest and clearest state- 
ments yet given of its permanent characteristics and of the 
conditions then existing. His general sympathy with the 
national cause is not disguised, but it does not color his 
Judgment of existing facts. He came from the South by 
the Mississippi River, and made his way into the Northern 
States via St. Louis. His judgment is fair and keen, his 
descriptions are generally accurate, his insight is good and 
his style graphic and lively. One of the best proofs of this 
is to be found in his reference to the American plan of pro- 
tection. Unlike most English observers and writers, his 
mind has a continental outlook, and he does not merely 
seek to use his observations as a string on which to hang 
opinions preconceived and settled. He evidently seeks to 
find out why the American people have, as a rule, so largely 
favored a protective policy. The reasons which he finds 
given he also finds to prevail in the great English Colonies, 
both in America and on the Australian Continent. He speaks 
of it in -these words: — "It is a common doctrine in the 
Colonies of England that a Nation cannot be called inde- 
pendent, if it has to cry out to another for supplies of ne- 
cessities \ that true national existence is first attained when 
the country becomes capable of supplying to its own citi- 
zens those goods without which they cannot exist in the 
state of comfort they have already reached." 

Mr. Dilke conveys the idea that the future holds both 
the possibility and probability of a federation of the En- 
glish-speaking communities, which now belt the world with 
two hundred millions of population. He indicates quite 
clearly that the American Republic must be the organ iz- 



42 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES, 

ing centre of such a movement, and that the federal plan on 
which it is constructed must be, with modifications, that of 
the union of English-speaking communities, which, it is argued 
must yet be framed in the interest of civilization. At the 
time of Mr. Dilke's journey there was a good deal of specu- 
lation on such themes. The immense growth of the Anglo- 
American offshoots, as well as the rapidly rising importance 
of the Anglo-Indian and Australian Colonies and depen- 
dencies, make a problem of importance of the ques- 
tion : — What are to be the future relations of the Mother- 
country to these children of hers? Alfred H. Louis, 
formerly editor of the London Spectator, and now a resident 
of Boston, has long advocated the idea of an Anglo-Saxon 
federation, belting the world with its international comrade- 
ship. Our brilliant young publicist had doubtless been 
influenced by the largeness of the idea, as he has also, it 
is evident, by the comprehensive criticisms which have been 
made from the " Positivist " standpoint, on the Asiatic 
policy of Great Britain. The observations of the baronet, 
as expressed in "Greater Britain," and more recently mani- 
fested by his motions and questions in Parliament, shofo 
that he has carefully studied the average Anglo-Chinese 
and Indo-Imperial view of affairs, coming to the conclusion 
that they have heretofore " been weighed in the balance, 
and found wanting." 

The good feeling for, and admiration of, the United 
States, which Sir Charles Dilke expresses in his book, has 
found expression in more than one instance on the floor of 
the House of Commons. At the opening of the session of 
1870, the member for Chelsea was selected to second the 
address in response to the Queen's Speech. This is a duty 



SIR CHARLES WENT WORTH DILKE. 43 

usually devolving on some younger member of the party in 
power, this representative being selected by the Ministry. 
The choice of Sir Charles Dilke was regarded as significant 
of both a radical policy and a conciliatory manner towards 
the radicals, on the part of Mr. Gladstone. During Sir 
Charles' speech he made the following kindly and graceful 
reference to the United States : " With one foreign power, 
if the word ' foreign ' be strictly applicable to a people 
whose tongue and whose thought are ours, relations are 
returning to something better than their former state. 
Time and the sympathies of race are too strong for politi- 
cians and for governments. As the days roll by, bitter words 
are forgotten, and men begin to wonder where the angry 
feelings of the past can have had their rise, when they note 
the calmness of the reasoning with which former subjects 
of dispute are now approached on either side of the great 
seas. We are told in the Speech that we are soon to deal 
with the Naturalization matter. No declaration could 
give more pleasure to the millions of persons, now citizens 
of the United States, who were born on British soil, and 
there is reason to believe that the settlement that has been 
reached conflicts with no sentiment of English dignity, and 
with no principle of modern English law, but that it will 
prove even more satisfactory to the Americans than the ar- 
rangements they have made with the Prussians."* 

Sir Charles Dilke's parliamentary record shows him to 
be both an industrious and practical member. Though his 
ultra views have rendered him somewhat unpopular as a 
politician in the House itself, his acknowledged freedom 

* " Hansard's Debates," Feb. S, 1870. 



44 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

from affectation of superior knowledge ; his readiness for 
hard work • his fund of extensive and accurate informa- 
tion j and the genuine manliness and courage with which 
he has met the opposition, have secured him personal re- 
spect and close attention. A wider experience .and recent 
sorrow have naturally given tone and depth to the charac- 
ter of one who has assuredly won a right to be esteemed 
as among the foremost of the younger generation of English 
public men. He has, more recently, too, shown his pos- 
session of a humor for which he had not received credit, 
turning the tables on his critics by good-naturedly and 
pointedly holding up a mirror to himself in " Prince Flores- 
tan." " Dod's " manual records Sir Charles Dilke as " A 
Radical ; in favor of further distribution of seats and the 
assimilation of county franchise to that of the boroughs, 
the abolition of the income tax and sugar duties." There 
is nothing in this of the " Red Spectre," with which at one 
time many English people associated the name of Dilke. 

He was re-elected in 1874, at the head of the poll, in 
spite of the fact that many of his votes had run counter to 
the prejudices, and perhaps to the interests,of a large num- 
ber of his constituents. Chelsea, like Lambeth and Hack- 
ney, is a borough largely made up of the trading or shop- 
keeping class. On economic questions the baronet gen- 
erally finds himself in accord with Professor Fawcett, while 
on education, he follows, as a member of the Executive 
Committee of the Birmingham League, the lead of Mr. 
George Dixon. He is a warm advocate of a compulsory 
system, under the direction of the State itself. Opposed 
of course to denominational control, he does not concen- 
trate himself on that point or the demand for secular direc- 



SIR CHARLES WENT WORTH DILKE. 45 

tion, so much as he does on that of compulsion. He brings 
to this discussion, as his speeches show, a comprehensive 
knowledge of the condition of education in various coun- 
tries, and this trait is equally characteristic of his mind in 
other matters. Sir Charles Dilke has strenuously advo- 
cated the extension of suffrage to women, especially urg- 
ing the rights of the unmarried, who are also the pos- 
sessors of property, as a logical application of the idea on 
which the franchise rests to a larger extent than on any- 
thing else in Great Britain. Addressing the House, May 8th, 
1870, he said : — " If you make property the absolute test, 
without exception or disqualification of any kind, you have 
for the first time an intelligent basis on which you may 
rest your suffrage, and upon which you can withstand the 
demand for universal suffrage." He did not indorse the 
limitation as equitable or wise ; he only argued its logical 
character as relating itself to the measure then pending — 
a bill according the vote to unmarried women who were 
freeholders and ratepayers in their own right. 

The "measures on which Sir Charles Dilke has widely 
rested his usefulness in the House, since the outburst 
against him over the Civil List inquiry, relate chiefly to the 
Franchise, and the more equitable adjustment of population 
and representation. He voted with Mr. Trevelyan for the 
extension to counties of the Borough Franchise, thus aid- 
ing the Agricultural Laborers' movement, but his own 
measure for re-distribution of seats necessarily underlies 
any real readjustment. The bill was introduced into the 
last Parliament, and received the support of but a com- 
paratively small portion of the Liberal vote, — the Prime 
Minister himself opposing. At the last division, in the 



46 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

session of 1875, Mr. Gladstone voted for it, with a greater 
portion of those who were in his Ministry. The motion to 
proceed to a second reading was defeated by a vote of 190 
to 120, a majority of 30. This is regarded as a great gain. 
The consideration, too, with which the Times especially, as 
well as all the London papers, treated its advocate, shows 
the great gain Sir Charles Dilke has made within the past 
three years. 

In his last speech he advocated the equality of fran- 
chise through the re-distribution of seats, nearly, though not 
entirely, on the basis of population ; and he also urged the 
representation of minorities. As to inequality of the fran- 
chise he showed that members were seated at the last gen- 
eral election who had not one-twentieth or even one-sixtieth 
the number of votes required to elect elsewhere some other 
member. Thus some voters are favored unduly. A Parlia- 
mentary document printed on motion of Sir Charles Dilke, 
shows that the constituencies in England and Wales num- 
ber 2,301,206, of whom 840,360 are electors in counties, 
1,448,779 in boroughs, and 12,067 in universities. In 
Ireland, the Parliamentary electors number 230,436 — 
175,414 in counties, and 55,022 in boroughs. In Scotland, 
there are 289,789 electors, of whom 84,752 are in counties, 
195,176 in burghs, and 9,861 in universities. This makes 
a total for the United Kingdom and Ireland of 3,021,431 
electors. The total number of inhabitants is, in Great Brit- 
ain alone, 31,457,331, the number of electors, 2,680,680; 
the number of unrepresented adult persons is stated at 
14,388,335. The Electoral Reform Association, a body 
formed to support Sir Charles Dilke's efforts, offer in a 
striking petition, which the senior member for Chelsea pre- 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 47 

sented, the facts whereon the new demand is based. They 
say: 

" That the borough and county constituencies of the United 
Kingdom, with less than 100,000 inhabitants each, had a total 
population in 1871 of 10,346,667 and are represented in the 
House of Commons by 402 members ; while the constituencies 
with more than 100,000 inhabitants had a total population of 
21,113,655, and are represented by only 241 members. The 
constituencies which, as regards population, are in a minority of 
10,766,988, have a majority of 161 representatives in the House 
of Commons. 

" That the number of electors upon the register now in force, 
in boroughs which in 1871 had a population of less than 10,000, 
is 67,257, returning 77 representatives, while the number of 
electors in the boroughs which in 1871 had above 100,000 in- 
habitants is 910,073. returning 68 representatives. The former 
class of constituencies have one member for every 873 electors, 
while the latter have only one member for every 13,383 ; the 
electors of the small boroughs have fifteen times the weight in 
Parliament of the large cities and towns. 

****** 

There are 45 of these boroughs ; in 1871 they had an aggregate 
population of 497,962 and 68,281 electors, returning 52 members. 

"That the evils of the existing distribution of seats become 
daily more aggravated with the increase of population in the 
large towns. The electors in the boroughs with less than 
10,000 population were 64,092 in 1871, and are 67,257 on the 
present register, showing an increase of only 3,165, while in the 
boroughs with more than 100,000 population, the electors were 
776,755 in 1871 and are now 910,073, an increase of 133,318, or 
within 1,196 of double the whole amount of electors in the small 
boroughs. 

" That the returns of the last census show that the town 
population of England and Wales in 1871 was 12,900,297, and 



48 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

the rural population 9,803,811, the former occupying 3,287,151 
and the latter 34,037,732 acres of land; while the population of 
the Parliamentary boroughs was only 10,652,423, showing a town 
population of 2,247,874 which is deprived of borough representa- 
tion. 

" That the population of London within the limits of the 
Metropolis Local Management Act was 3,266,987, in 1871, 
while the population of its Parliamentary boroughs was only 
3,022,066, showing that, within its limits, a town population of 
244,921 has no distinctive representation in the House of 
Commons, although as fully qualified, in every respect, as the 
inhabitants of the small constituencies which have now a pre- 
ponderating influence in Parliament. 

•' That the metropolitan boroughs with their population of 
3,022,066 have only 22 representatives, while the counties of 
Buckingham and Wiltshire, with an aggregate population of 
433,056, have 23. The metropolis has 13 per cent, of the popu- 
lation of England and Wales, but only 4^ per cent, of the rep- 
resentation. Its claims to a fair share of political power are 
ignored in favor of small boroughs whose main qualification ap- 
pears to consist in the fact that they are the means whereby 
the "landed interest" maintains its predominance in the House 
of Commons. 

" That the existing distribution of political power fails to se- 
cure a fair representation of the electoral body, a fact which is 
evidenced by the returns for the contested constituencies of the 
county of Lancaster. The number of members returned by those 
constituencies at the last general election was 22 Conservative, 
and 6 Liberal ; whereas the strength of the two parties, taking 
the highest polls on each side as the test, was 105,441 Conserv- 
ative, and 95,345 Liberal votes. Under an equitable arrange- 
ment of representation the numbers returned would have been 
Conservative, 15; Liberal, 13. 

" That the number of English county constituencies in which 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 49 

political life is becoming extinct, and large classes of electors 
are being deprived of any opportunity of recording their con- 
victions at the polling booth, is a serious evil, which demands 
the early consideration of Parliament, as it is very undesirable 
that large constituencies should exist for the sole purpose of 
registering the edicts of a small but dominant fraction of the 
population. In 1868 there were no contests in thirty-eight, and 
in 1874 none in fifty-four, county constituencies. 

"That the limitation of voting power in constituencies return- 
ing more than two members, introduced by the Reform Act of 
1867, is a very unsatisfactory attempt to provide for the repre- 
sentation of minorities ; that it is partially and unjustly applied, 
the constituencies selected having been the largest in boroughs 
and the smallest in counties ; that it is an aggravation of the 
existing inequality of representation, and tends to perpetuate a 
system under which 'the minority of electors have a large pre- 
ponderance of representation. 

" That the true problem to be solved in connection with this 
question is that of securing the effective and proportionate 
representation of the whole community, so that both the aggre- 
gate majority and minority in the constituencies shall each have 
a representation proportionate to their numerical strength, and 
that individual electors may have the widest possible area of 
choice." 

The petitioners asked for a Royal Commission of In- 
quiry. Among the best points made by Sir Charles 
Dilke, in a speech conceded to be unusually effective from 
its moderate tone and ample acquaintance with the theme, 
was the reading of an advertisement clipped from the 
Times, in which a landed property was offered for sale, 
including among other advantages, that of a seat in the 
House of Commons. He showed also that the small towns 
were decreasing and the larger ones increasing in the 
3 4 



50 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

number of inhabitants. Any one ward in Chelsea was 
larger than twenty-four of the small boroughs he named. 

Sir Charles Dilke is a man of good proportions, middle 
stature and a handsome, open countenance, thoughtful in 
expression, and of a decidedly English look. Prosperity 
and honors have, in his case, been accompanied by a full 
share of public and private sorrows. The death of his father 
shortly after the son's entry into public life, the fierce 
arraignment of his motives which followed his action in 
1870, and the early death of his young wife, have left 
their influence on his character, strengthening his con- 
victions while moderating their manifestations. The early 
death of Lady Dilke, who is generally spoken of and writ- 
ten about as a lady of uncommon brilliancy of talents and 
wit, was widely commented on, owing to the fact that at 
her own request her remains were submitted to the process 
of cremation. Lady Dilke was the daughter of the late 
Arthur Gore Sheil, Esq., was married to Sir Charles in 
1872, and died in 1874. 

The London correspondent of the New York Tribune, 
writing of Sir Charles Dilke's second voyage " round the 
world," says, that "the chief object of this journey is 
Japan, which he will explore as thoroughly as time and 
circumstances permit. Neither in New York nor anywhere 
in the Eastern States does he propose to stop, but may 
renew his acquaintance with Brigham Young and the Mor- 
mons, who seem to be an unfailing attraction to every class 
of Englishmen. Whether Sir Charles means to write an- 
other book, I cannot say. Perhaps he himself cannot say. 
I suppose his tour is undertaken partly to satisfy the rest- 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 5 1 

lessness which at one time or another always resumes its 
hold on a man who has traveled much and rapidly ; partly 
to judge for himself something of an extraordinary people 
whose relations to Europe, and particularly to England, 
are growing yearly more intimate. There is a great field 
for a rising English politician in Oriental questions. Few 
Englishmen study them, except from a commercial point 
of view, a mistake Sir Charles Dilke will not commit. He 
is able to master a subject, and has lately shown more 
cleverness than he at first did in the use he makes of the 
knowledge he accumulates. Once unpopular in the House 
— for purely political reasons — he is now popular, having 
taken the sure way to regain its confidence — constant at- 
tendance, infrequent speaking, and steadily speaking better. 
When a man has abilities and industry, with some tact, he 
need not wait long to get a share of the confidence and 
good will of the House." 

He will probably be as fortunate in this tour as he .was 
in his first visit to the United States. Then, he saw the 
earliest'phases of Southern reconstruction ; now, he will wit- 
ness the reception of the Prince of Wales by the Indian 
population and princes, as well as learn of the remarkable 
changes both in conditions and policies, which are in pro- 
gress in the East. These experiences cannot but be of 
great value to an English statesman, with prospects before 
him as notable as those of Sir Charles Dilke. It is by no 
means among the improbabilities that he may become at 
some not over distant day, the actual ruler of that great 
empire, whether it shall be as Prime Minister, under the 
system of liberalized monarchy which has been described 
as an " hereditary presidency," or as the elected President 



52 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

of a Constitutional Republic. There is a good deal of that 
confidence felt in him, which GeorgeOdger expressed when, 
in 187 1, he said, "I look upon Sir Charles Dilke as the 
future leader of the republicans. He has everything neces- 
sary to fit him for the position. Whatever he does, he does 
well,' he speaks well ; he works well ; he studies well ; he 
thinks well ; he is a republican through and through from 
conviction and from choice, and he associates with republi- 
cans, for he really likes their society, and it is because he 
is one himself." 

Yet this statement will give, if unqualified, an erroneous 
impression of Sir Charles Dilke's position. He himself 
has so good-humoredly indicated it in "Prince Florestan/' 
that it will be worth while to quote there-from This clever 
volume, which excited a great deal of discussion and com- 
ment on its appearance, was sent in manuscript to Messrs. 
Macmillan for publication, without anything to indicate 
the authorship. At first they declined the book, because 
it was construed by them to be a satire on Sir Charles 
Dilke. On their being satisfied as to this matter it was 
issued. It is entitled " The Fall of Prince Florestan of 
Monaco," and purports to be the history of a princeling 
educated in England and imbued with the theoretical 
republicanism of the Cambridge school. Monaco is the 
tiny principality on the coast of the the Gulf of Nice, which 
was known as the principal public gambling place in Europe, 
after the Kursaal, at Baden and elsewhere in Germany, had 
been suppressed. Prince Florestan is suddenly called to 
rule over his pocket principality, and on arrival proceeds 
to lay down his philosophy and carry out his reform with- 
out much regard to actual conditions. The story is but a 



SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE. 53 

sketch, but it is cleverly done. Of course it ends in his 
being driven out of Monaco. Everybody in England 
versed in politics, Cambridge affairs, and the radical cliques 
generally, was much amused at the incisive but not un- 
kindly satire with which these matters were treated. Dilke 
himself was the best lampooned figure in the group. The 
" Prince " says : " Fired with the enthusisam of my party 
and my age, I had subscribed to the Woman's Suffrage As- 
sociation, to Mr. Bradlaugh's election expenses, to the 
Anti-Game-Law Association and to the Education League. 
My reading was less one-sided than my politics, and my 
republicanism was tempered by an unwavering worship of 
' Lothair.' Mr. Disraeli was my admiration as a public man 
— a Bismarck without his physique and his opportunities 
— but then in politics one always prefers one's opponents 
to one's friends. As a republican, I had a cordial aversion 
to Sir Charles Dilke, a clever writer, but an awfully dull 
speaker, who imagines that his forte is public speaking, and 
who, having been brought up in a set of strong prejudices, 
positively makes a merit of never having got over them. 
This he calls ' never changing his opinions.' For Mr. 
Gladstone I had the ordinary undergraduate detestation. 
There are no liberals at. Cambridge, we were all rank 
republicans or champions of right divine." 

After an amusing account of his efforts as Prince of 
Monaco, " Florestan " says : " The only later views that I 
have to record is a letter from my friend Gambetta, promis- 
ing that when he becomes President of France I shall be 
Prefet of the Department of the Alpes Maritimes, which 
includes my ex-dominions, on condition that I am very 
moderate." 



54 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

This amusing jen d 'esprit ended of course, with a refer- 
ence to the reception in England of the news of the 
" Prince's " downfall ; and the little satire winds up by the 
following apt reflections on English affairs, illustrative of 
the different conditions that prevailed in Monaco : 

"In England you have a divided Church; an increas- 
ing and active though still little numerous Catholic body ; a 
materialistic world of fashion which goes alternately to Mr. 
Wilkinson and Canon Liddon, Mr. Haweis and Mr. Stop- 
ford Brooke, and does not believe a word that any of them 
says — unless it is Mr. Haweis; but then, doctrinally speak- 
ing, he says nothing. You have the old non-conformist 
bodies, able and powerful still, though less powerful than 
before 1868 ; and you have the Wesleyans, pulpy and rich. 
Outside of them all you have people who believe, two-thirds 
of them, in the Bible pure and simple, but with prominence 
given in their mind to the communistic side of the New 
Testament; and one-third in nothing unless it is Mr. 
Charles Watts, Mr. Austin Holyoke, and Mr. Bradlaugh. 
The most flourishing publications in your country are 
ZadkieVs Almanac and Reynolds' Newspaper, belonging to 
the opposite poles, but equally at war with all that is most 
powerful and rich and respectable in society." 

This holding up the mirror to society so amused the 
English club and political circles that when it became known 
that Sir Charles was himself the author, it put everybody 
in such good humor as to take the personal sting out of 
his ultraism. It was felt that a man so thoroughly in 
harmony with himself as to be able to laugh at and with 
the incongruous elements in his position, was a man of 
much more weight and metal, than he had heretofore ob- 
tained credit for. 



III. 
Peter A. Taylor. 




OLITICAL principles are often inherited in Eng- 
land, like landed property. Nor is this peculiarity 
confined to the country gentlemen and the scions 



of the great families — Whig or Tory. The denominational 
relations of a household will shape the future political posi- 
tions of the young. men growing around the hearth-stone, just 
as they did those of their father. This is quite often true of 
the wealthier middle-class families — commercial or manu- 
facturing — who are usually the lay leaders of the non-con- 
forming sects. The further removed these are from the 
Church Establishment, the more radical, as a rule, are the 
politics ; the closer too the communion among themselves. 
This even extends to matrimonial relations, so that the 
larger portion of whole congregations may be often 
found distantly related to each other. The member for 
Leicester is the head of one of the most noted Unitarian 
families, and comes naturally by the talents and radicalism 
which make him a marked man in the House of Com- 
mons. 



56 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Peter A. Taylor was born in London, in 1819, and is now 
in his 56th year. His father was a very well known silk 
manufacturer, of the firm of Courtauld, Taylor & Court- 
auld. Their sons are still in the same business. The 
elder partners, Samuel Courtauld and Peter A. Taylor, 
Sen., were well known Unitarians and Liberals in their 
day, as their sons are at this time. Mr. Taylor, Sen., was 
one of the most prominent and active members of the Corn 
Law League, but not being a popular speaker, his reputa- 
tion is not as widely known as that of others. It was a 
period of intense agitation, of deep and abiding utility in 
the work performed. The Corn Law League discussion, in 
its origin and progress, embraced some of the finest talent 
of England, as it certainly did by its earnestness arouse 
the enthusiasm of nearly all classes, a result which can 
hardly be said to prove the economic theories which have 
grown in the shadow of its triumph. The " Manchester 
School," — as the hard, dry measurers of human lives and 
human society, by the rule of " supply and demand " are 
now termed, — evoke no sympathetic feeling, arouse no admi- 
ration or regard, whatever they may compel by their ability, 
logic and success. 

The Westminster Review, under the proprietorship of 
Col. T. Perronet Thompson, was the pioneer in the Corn 
Law agitation, and the papers which that veteran radical 
wrote for its pages and has since republished in his col- 
lected writings,* were among the most valuable of all that 
were written to call attention to the monopoly. Then came 
the Corn Law Rhymer, Ebenezer Elliott, whose powerful 

* " Political Exercises." 6 Vols. 



PETER A. TAYLOR. 57 

and melodious lyrics were first published in Tait's Edin- 
burgh Magazine, of which W. E. Hickson, wholesale iron- 
monger, was the proprietor. Mr. Hickson owned the West- 
minster Review after Col. Thompson retired. It was then- 
the Liberal Quarterly, par excellence. Then came Mr. W. 
J. Fox, known as an eloquent Unitarian divine and pulpit 
orator, but more widely as the " Norwich Weaver Boy," of 
the Anti-Corn Law League's organ ; as the " Publicola" of 
the London Weekly Dispatch, and also as the Member for 
Oldham, — a cotton mill borough in Lancashire, where 
great studies are now being made towards solving the 
problem of Labor and Capital, through the increasing own- 
ership by the former of the latter, by the application of the 
joint stock and limited liability ideas to the ownership 
of cotton and other factories. 

Mr. Fox published and edited the Monthly Repository, 
and in its pages many of Elliott's Corn Law and Reform 
lyrics appeared, as did those of Sarah Flower Adams, wife 
of William Brydges Adams, who, with John Stuart Mill, 
Mazzini,"Mr. Hickson himself, and others, wrote for the 
great quarterly. The Cambridgeshire Intelligencer, edited 
by Mr. Flower, father of Mrs. Adams, was the first really 
liberal paper in England. With all these persons and their 
associates, the father of Peter A. Taylor, an able and modest 
man, was actively engaged, in the Anti-Corn Law, Church 
Rates and Reform agitations. His sons were brought up 
in the atmosphere thus generated, and the eldest,now a mem- 
ber of Parliament and the " dean " of the extreme or Rad- 
ical wing of the Liberal party, has established his rightful 
heirship to the opinions and policies it naturally engendered. 

When Mr. Taylor himself entered public life nearly 
3* 



58 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

thirty years since, English politics were in state of ferment 
amounting almost to turbulence. The Chartist movement 
represented one wing of that activity, and the more popular 
or radical one ; while the calmer and more thoughtful phase 
of current discussion found expression through a small but 
influential body of political writers and thinkers known as the 
" Philosophical Radicals." This school was deeply influ- 
enced by the teachings of Joseph Mazzini, whose politics 
were always kept true to a high ideal by a lofty sense of duty. 
Those who belonged to the school were intimately acquaint- 
ed with European affairs, and endeavored heartily to aid the 
Italian leader in his chosen work by creating a favorable 
public opinion in Great Britain. They understood also 
that long preparation is necessary to make Republicans, 
and in seeking to set in operation principles of government, 
believed that in the end forms would necessarily become 
harmoniously adjusted to these. Among the better known 
of those who belonged to this class of thinkers was the 
member for Leicester — then a young man, rich and popular. 
Others may be mentioned, as Thornton Hunt, son of . the 
graceful poet and critic ; William J. Linton, the artist ; 
George Jacob Holyoke, whose ai tides on the American 
abolition movement over the signature of " Ion," obtained 
from Wendell Phillips in reply, one of the most notable 
orations of his life ; Mr. Stansfield, afterwards in Parlia- 
ment ; Goodwyn Barmby ; Doctor, afterwards Sir John 
Bowring ; W. H. Ashurst ; Mr. Asher, (now solicitor to the 
General Post Office); Thomas Cooper ; W. J. Fox ; — these 
with others were members of the class which founded the 
Leader and left through that and other channels a distinct 
impression on British affairs. 



PETER A. TAYLOR. 59 

Peter A. Taylor has been consistent to his earlier con- 
victions. That fact, combined with his courtesy and moral 
worth, has won for him, during his fifteen years of continued 
parliamentary service, the respect of all who associated 
with him, however much they may be hostile to his opinion. 
In Dod's Parliamentary Guide, he is now recorded as " a 
Liberal," favoring extension of the suffrage, an extensive 
re-distribution of seats, abolition of the rate-paying quali- 
fication, the total abolition of the game laws, and it might 
be added of the unpaid magistracy of England, and of all 
grants beyond the Civil List to members of the Royal 
family. Mr. Taylor long antedates Sir Charles JDilke in 
his antagonism to the last grants, and has ^never failed to 
speak and vote against them, even though he has gone into 
the lobby alone, when the House divided on his motion. 
The London correspondent of a leading New York paper 
pays Mr. Taylor this sarcastic compliment, when referring 
to his vote on appropriating $250,000 for the expenses of 
the trip to India made by the Prince of Wales — that among 
others, it was opposed " by Mr. P. A. Taylor, a sentimen- 
tal revolutionist, whose mission in life is to save ruffianly 
wife beaters and kickers from the lash, and to get the royal 
family cashiered." 

Mr. Taylor's connection with the South Place Chapel 
— which stands to Unitarianism in England somewhat as 
Theodore Parker and his congregation did to the same 
denomination in New England, has helped to make him 
the representative of the liberal thought that gathered 
around such men as the famous W. J. Fox, known when 
living as one of the most eloquent orators in England. He 
has always been an ardent advocate of disestablishment 



60 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

for the State Church, and of Public Schools supported by 
taxation, with secular and compulsory education for the 
children. Mr. Taylor is the proprietor of the Examiner, a 
weekly journal and review that has been long known for 
its identity with radical reform in English politics and af- 
fairs. Under his proprietorship it is reassuming the leading 
place it maintained when it was contributed to or edited 
by men like Leigh Hunt, Grote, Place and others of that 
day. Its boldness and plain-speaking verges on the trench- 
ant order. It has handled the Heir Apparent without 
gloves, at the risk, if its estimates of that work be true, of 
having its own hands soiled. " The Greville Memoirs " af- 
forded a fair excuse for this freedom of discussion. The ex- 
aminer reviewed the Life of the late Prince Consort, and did 
it in a style of singular candor, considering how everything 
but adulation is tabooed on that theme. "While the popular 
judgment of the Prince during his lifetime was far from 
erring as gravely on the side of exaggeration as his own 
opinion of himself, or the laudation of a little clique about 
the court, his memory for the last fourteen years has been 
unrelentingly pursued by posthumous adulation. He was 
merely a commonplace, plodding person, with fair natural 
capacities carefully trained, and not a gleam of the warmer 
imaginative fires of the intellect. In its well-tilled flatness 
his mind resembled those Flemish farms where a hillock 
or a hedge is resented as a loss of valuable ground." 
These criticisms indicate the general direction of Mr. 
Taylor's course in relation to royal grants, and similar 
measures, for which course he inevitably receives the 
severest criticisms. Yet the senior member for Leicester 
makes no pretensions of favoring republicanism. He 



PETER A. TAYLOR. 6 1 

simply exercises, as he claims, his right to see that the 
executive is not more extravagantly or ostentatiously dealt 
with than are the other officers of the Kingdom. He has 
made himself the representative of this view and has un- 
doubtedly won the respect of the House by his courtesy, 
consistency, and unwavering courage. 

A notable incident in the earlier political life of Mr. 
Taylor was his connection with the agitation led by Mr. 
Thomas S. Duncombe, so long member for Finsbury, on 
account of Sir James Graham's action while Postmaster- 
General during Sir Robert Peel's last administration, in 
opening for the benefit of the Austrian Government the 
letters of Mazzini and other Italian revolutionists, then 
living in England as political refugees. The fact of the 
opening was acknowledged by Sir James Graham before a 
secret committee of the House of Commons. In the out- 
door discussion and agitation Mr. Taylor, then quite a 
young man, took an active part. He became identified 
soon after with the " People's International League," which 
was founded in 1856-7, and enrolled among its sympathizers 
or active advocates such names as Grote, Place, Hume, 
Dr. Bo wring, Barmby, Henry Vincent, Dr. Epps, James 
Watson, Mr. Solly (since known as the organizer of the 
Workingmen's Clubs in England), Thornton Hunt, Lin- 
ton and the Messrs. Taylor, father and son. The object 
of the League was stated to be the enlightenment of the 
" British Public as to the Political Conditions and Relations 
of Foreign Countries ; to Disseminate the Principles of 
National Freedom and Progress ; to embody and mani- 
fest an 'efficient public opinion in favor of the right of 
every people to self government and the maintenance of 



02 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

their own Nationality ; to promote a good understanding 
between the people of all countries/' In an address full 
of warm appeal and genuine fire, it was urged that the 
Unity of Humanity, which expresses the law of individual 
intercourse, also includes the law of the inter-communica- 
tion of nations. # * * As no man will reach heaven 
who seeks to reach it alone, so no nation will ever develop 
the highest and most enduring forms of national life, while 
it is contented to remain the passive and uninterested 
spectator of the onward and upward struggles of kindred 
peoples. Multiplication in unity is the law or type of Na- 
tional progression. May not a calm and peaceful evolu- 
tion avert the threatened strife ? Why can not these 
Nationalities be recognized — as each proves the justice of 
its claim, — be set free to develop each its own peculiar 
growth, to fulfil each its own special mission, so to work 
out God's providential plan ? For, if this is not God's 
plan, languages, tendencies, traditions, geographical char- 
acteristics, have no meaning. When a people is struggling 
to embody its inner life in new forms of outward institu- 
tion, why not hail the event, and assist instead of hinder- 
ing its ascent to the dignity and capacity of a nation ? 

" The League was formed," continues the address, " in 
the interests of peace, as based on civilization and human 
progress, and to that end seeks to know the conditions and 
circumstances of all nations. 

" With political questions," it declares " except this 
question of Nationality, we, as a League, have nothing to 
do. With forms of government, with contests between 
Democracy and Privilege, we, as a League, cannot interfere." 

Mr. Taylor at the first public meeting of the League 



PETER A. TAYLOR. 63 

made a speech, in which he declared that every nation 
must decide its own form of government, " by the national 
tendencies, the state of education and enlightenment of 
each and every people." 

During the secession war, Mr. Taylor was from the be- 
ginning to the close, an active friend of the Union cause 
in Great Britain. In conjunction with the member for 
Rochdale, Mr. Potter, John Bright, Mr. Thomas Hughes, 
and other gentlemen, he gave his money and his labors 
ungrudgingly to promote English sympathy in favor of 
the Federal struggle. How much of the former was 
spent by Mr. Taylor, Mr. Bazley Potter, and other 
friends, will probably never be known. There was a 
period in the progress of the civil war, when the in- 
tervention of Great Britain seemed imminent. It would 
certainly have been disastrous. It was during the latter 
part of 1862, when the Confederate agents in England 
spent money freely in the efforts to induce the work- 
ing class organizations, leader and organs, to pronounce in 
favor ot their government's raising the blockade of the 
Southern ports by force, under the pretext of obtaining 
cotton, and so ending what is known as the " cotton fam- 
ine." Messrs. Lindsay, Laird & Co., who were in parlia- 
ment, hard at work endeavoring to obtain a recognition of 
the Southern Confederacy, were aided by the efforts made 
to arouse the masses. But, it must be borne in mind that 
the Radical leaders and their followers, with the popula- 
tions in those centres from which their strength is derived, 
never for a day wavered in their support of the Union 
cause, or faltered in their apprehension of the motives 
which led so large a proportion of the land-governing, 



64 ' BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

commercial and trading classes to side with the South. 
In London, Liverpool, and Glasgow alone of the great 
cities of that country, was there either a marked hostility 
or coldness on the part of the working men. In Liver- 
pool, the close relations of its leading interests with the 
Cotton States, accounted for this in large degree. Glas- 
gow was the centre for the blockade runners. London 
was cold because her workmen were not as compactly 
united, and could not be reached as well as was the case 
with the same class in the manufacturing towns. In fact 
where the war caused the most suffering, there was shown 
the most fidelity to principles, and an outspoken faith in 
the American Republic, which contrasted strongly with 
the lukewarmness exhibited in some quarters at home. 

In speaking of this, Mr. Taylor's active aid to the 
work cannot be overlooked. His purse-strings were un- 
loosened, and his money was freely given for the publica- 
tion of documents, the expenses of meetings, and to en- 
able leading workingmen like Odger, Howell, and others, 
to devote themselves to the task of organizing and ani- 
mating their associates. Mr. Taylor spoke whenever his 
voice was of service, in or out of the House, and subse- 
quently when the Alabama discussion again aroused hos- 
tile feeling, he remained unshaken by the excitement in- 
volved by Senator Sumner's severe arraignment of English 
policy. Speaking on the escape of the confederate cruis- 
ers, Mr. Taylor addressing his constituency in 1868, said 
that " The Alabama went forth freighted with something 
worse than guns and men, to fire upon American com-, 
merce • it bore a heavy freight of jealousy, ill-will and sus- 
picion." The course pursued, he declared, was only cal- 



PETER A. TAYLOR. 65 

culated to " promote discord between the two greatest and 
freest peoples in the world." Alluding to the Reform league 
agitation, and the Hyde Park demonstrations, he said that 
Russia was sometimes spoken of " as a despotism tem- 
pered with assassination," but Great Britain might be con- 
sidered " as a class government modified by Hyde Park 
railings." Refering to complaints of the Irish people, and 
the growth of the " Home Rule" movement, the " Irrecon- 
cilable " member said : "We cannot afford to part with 
you. We have a common battle to fight. You are no 
longer oppressed as you were fifty years ago ; you suffer 
now under an apprehension which Englishmen also feel. 
You are overlaid with the landed power, so are we ; and 
were it not that our manufactures act as a set off to the 
evil we endure under the remains of the feudal system, all 
England would be (as Norfolk and Wiltshire indeed are) 
like Munster." 

That Mr. Taylor possesses the entire confidence of his 
constituency, is evident from the bold and independent 
policy he pursues. When taunted on one occasion that he 
would not be supported for opposing a royal grant — that 
of the marriage portion or gift to the Duke of Edinburgh, 
Mr. Taylor replied by visiting Leicester, and before a large 
meeting — ten thousand persons being present — he made a 
statement of his action. He then asked for a vote in ap- 
proval or disapproval, and received an unanimous endorse- 
ment. Mr. G. W. Smalley, the London correspondent of 
the New York Tribune, said in a letter " Mr. Taylor in- 
deed, can afford to be as radical as he likes, and has a 
constituency which respects him for his frankness and 
ability." 

5 



66 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

But his chief public labors have been directed towards 
the abolition of the game laws and of the unpaid magis- 
tracy. Few persons, without a personal knowledge 
of English affairs, or accurate information from close 
study, can comprehend the character of these two 
abuses, or the tenacity with which reform in these directions 
is resisted. The game laws have long been, and are yet 
an infamous adjunct of the land monopoly, and are sus- 
tained simply for the amusement of a limited class. It 
should be however borne in mind, that an English Premier 
who should fail to get through the public business, or ad- 
journ Parliament in time for the August grouse shooting, 
or at latest the beginning of September, would stand very 
little chance of preserving the friendship of his followers, 
and would in fact have committed as serious a blow at 
time-honored customs, as if he had assailed the crown, 
or worse still, the law of primogeniture itself. Capt. 
Maxse, a well known radical, who however differs some- 
what from Mr. Taylor on this question, speaking of the 
stringent trespass laws that have been passed in connec- 
tion with the preservation of game, says: 

" In most districts in England no lawful highways now exist be- 
yond the dusty or miry road, and yet there is scarcely a piece of land 
which may not during some portion — frequently a long one — of the 
year be traversed without damage." 

He urges that laws against trespass are necessary, and 
thinks the member for Leicester has failed in presenting 
them while demanding the repeal of the game laws. He 
says : 

" I have a very high opinion of Mi". Peter A. Taylor, but I hold that 
he has misdirected public opinion upon the subject of the game 
grievance. He has very properly aroused indignation against it, but 



PETER A. TAYLOR. t>J 

he has not known how to formulate this indignation into a just de- 
mand, and his habit of comparing the hare to a Bengal tiger brings 
the whole subject into ridicule. It is true, Mr. Taylor says a ' new 
Trespass Law might be passed,' but in the same breath he invites the 
'slayer of wild animals' 'into the field.' The result of this can only 
be constant broil and tumult. I am of Mr. Mill's opinion upon the 
matter, namely, ' that wild animals should belong to those at whose ex- 
pense they have been fed, the nearest approach to which is that they 
should belong to the occupier of the land on which they are taken or 
killed.' If they are found upon the highway or public ground they 
should belong to the public." 

How much the efforts of Mr. Taylor, and those asso- 
ciated with him now, or who preceded him in the agitation, 
have accomplished, may be judged by some words of Mr. 
Fowell Buxton, uttered in 182 1, urging the modification 
of the animal laws he said : "Kill your father, or a rabbit 
in a warren, the penalty is the same ; — destroy these king- 
doms, or a hop vine, the penalty is the same ; — meet a 
gipsy on the high road, keep company with him or kill 
him, the penalty by law is the same, — that penalty being, 
death." 

The unpaid justices of the peace, are wholly taken from 
the land owning class. In fact such a commission can only 
be given to a person possessed of a certain freehold in fee 
simple. It is therefore practically a class tribunal of con- 
siderable importance. To defending those who have been 
unjustly convicted for poaching, trespass, breach of labor 
contracts, etc., and otherwise exposing the incompetency 
of such magistrates, Mr. Taylor has devoted the greater 
part of his Parliamentary efforts. Like Mr. Plimsoll, he 
never yields ; but unlike his excitable friend, he never 
loses his temper. He has at last obtained the ear of the 
House, and when rising in his place he calls its attention 



68 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

to some such matter, he is sure of respectful attention from 
the Government benches as well as from the Opposition. 

The session of 1875 presented a notable case of this, 
in the person of Luke Hill, a farm laborer hired as a carter 
by one Captain Hyde, a farmer and land owner in Sussex. 
The laborer was convicted for breach of contract under 
the " Master and Servant Act." Capt. Hyde claimed that 
the man had hired himself for one year, and on his leaving 
some time after hiring, had him arrested and taken before 
a Bench of County justices, who convicted him and fined 
him ,£5 as damage. Capt. Hyde estimated his loss at £9, 
but only claimed the smaller sum. The man was allowed 
a fortnight to procure the money and was then sent to 
prison for three months for, non-payment. The convic- 
tion created a great deal of indignation. The " Laborers 
Union" took it up and agitated boldly. It was claimed on 
Hill's part that he had made no such contract, and that 
having given the lawful notice of twelve days, he was 
entitled to leave. No contract was produced, other than 
a memorandum in Capt. Hyde's pocket book, which he 
stated was made at the time of the hiring and shown to 
Hill. At any rate, it was easy to prove how dispropor- 
tioned the punishment was to the offence. Mr. Taylor in 
calling attention to the case said it reminded him " in its 
high-handed justice, of the stories we have read in Smol- 
lett and Fielding of the magistracy of their day." 

The Home Secretary, Mr. Cross, said it was beyond 
his power to release or remit the fine, in such a case. 
The amount was raised and Hill was set free after a 
month's imprisonment. The case assumed considerable 
importance to the Agricultural Laborers' agitation, and 



PETER A. TAYLOR. 69 

quite a large demonstration occurred on the day of his 
discharge. Mr. Taylor spoke briefly, saying they met to 
welcome Luke Hill and assure him " in their name, that 
the disgrace which attached to a gaol-bird did not attach 
to him ; that, in their opinion, he left the prison without 
a taint upon his character, and that the disgrace which 
usually attached to such a punishment attached to those 
who sent him there. This was not a slight case. As he 
stated in the House of Commons, it was one in which a 
man, with a long honest record behind him, without the 
slightest offence or any misdeed attaching to him, had 
been ruined, so far as it lay in the hands of his judges 
to do so. It was only because ■ his case was so 
flagrant that it had been exposed to the world : 
he feared that there were scores of cases of which 
they had never heard, and in which the ruin of 
persons followed sentences such as Hill's." Mr. Tay- 
lor declared that not only was the conviction unjust, 
but illegal. He believed that, by the Statute of Frauds, 
no agreement which was not for a period within a year 
was legal, unless regularly signed and stamped. In this 
case that was not done, and therefore he considered that 
the sentence was a distinctly illegal one. He charged also 
that the injustice was done knowingly, as there was not 
that legal proof "of contracts the law required ; and in 
closing he urged the necessity of the laborers obtaining 
the franchise. This, he said, was not merely as a general 
principle of abstract justice, that all men should be repre- 
sented who are taxed, but that all those who are called 
upon to obey laws should have a share in making them 
through their representatives. 



7G BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Mr. Taylor is socially a great favorite, and his London 
residence, Aubrey House, is the "centre of a delightful 
society. His wife is a most accomplished lady, whom he 
knew first as the governess of his sisters ; and she, like 
Mrs. Fawcett, is an active leader in all public movements 
relating to the condition of woman. They have no child- 
ren, but their cultivation and literary tastes draw round 
them a large circle of those whose names are best known 
in literature and art. One of the most attractive private 
clubs in London, the " Pen and Pencil," held for a long 
time its meetings at their house. 



IV. 



Sir John Lubbock, Baronet. 




the annual meeting, in 1867, of the British associ- 
ation for the advancement of science, a generous 
and well-deserved compliment was paid by the 
distinguished savant whose name heads this page, while he 
presided over one of the sections of that learned body, to a 
gentleman sitting in the gathering but not of it, a jour- 
nalist reporting the proceedings for the New York Tribune. 
The correspondent was George Jacob Holyoake, and Sir 
John Lubbock, in speaking of him, referred to the service 
he had rendered the cause of free inquiry by his fearless 
assertion of the right, and his unyielding endurance of perse- 
cution in consequence. Mr. Holyoake is the founder of the 
secularist movement in Great Britian ; and was the last man 
imprisoned there for what the law termed blasphemy, but 
which in reality in his case was no more so than the studies 
and the discussions consequent thereupon, which have 
since made renowned the names of Huxley, Darwin, 
Tyndall, Lubbock, and Spencer. The baronet declared, 



72 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

that but for the labors of Mr. Holyoake, it might not have 
been possible for them, the savans, to speak as freely as 
they do in these days. 

The incident is characteristic of the liberal member 
for Maidstone. A gentleman uniting in himself the broad- 
est reputation for scholarship and science ; great aptitude 
for his business as a banker, and a wise, firm radicalism in 
politics, which makes him deservedly popular with the 
people ; while of him, as of Prof. Fawcett, it may well be 
said, "The true liberal is more and more felt to be he 
who, while trusting the heart of the people, does not bow 
to their superstitions or their prejudices, and, while serving 
them, does not suffer their dictation as to the way in which 
the service shall be rendered." * 

Sir John Lubbock was bora in 1834. He is the son of Sir 
John William Lubbock, of Mitcham Grove, Surrey, and 
High Elms, Down, Kent, eminent as a mathematician and 
astronomer, and of Harriet his wife, daughter of Lieutenant- 
Colonel George Hotham. The baronetcy was created in 
1806, in favor of the great great uncle of the present Bar- 
onet, who succeeded to it in 1865, and resides at High 
Elms, near Farnborough, in Kent, on an estate of some 
thirteen hundred acres, purchased by his grandfather. Sir 
John is a partner in the London bank with which his family 
has been connected for several generations, the business 
having been commenced in 1772. 

He was initiated into his business career at the age of 
fourteen, leaving Eton in 1848, and being taken into the 
banking-house, where his father had no working partner. 
At the age of twenty-two he married Miss Ellen Frances 
* Mr. Conway in Harper's Monthly, February, 1875. 



SIR JOHN LUEBCCK. 73 

Horden, daughter of a clergyman, and has had six children, 
three sons and three daughters. At the time of his mar- 
riage he was already eminent as a banker, not only by 
virtue of his inheritance but by the unmistakeable busi- 
ness talent he brought to its discharge. He has written 
on finance with the same clear insight, power of investi- 
gation and comprehension of details, which are character- 
istic of his scientific inquiries and writings. He has been 
for some years honorary secretary of the London Bankers' 
Association, and is the author of many improvements, 
chief among which is that of the " Country Clearing " 
system, whereby provincial transactions are greatly facili- 
tated 

He also organized a method of examinations for clerks, 
conducted by the City of London College, for the bankers, 
merchants, and joint-stock companies, in the same manner 
as those instituted by the Government under the Civil 
Service Commissioners. Instances might be named in 
which boys of very humble parentage, educated in a sim- 
ple English School, have been enabled, by this means, to 
obtain employment in the bank of Sir John Lubbock him- 
self. 

Sir John Lubbock's reputation as a banker and a poli 
tician, though eminent, is still circumscribed; but his position 
as a man of science belongs to the civilized world. In Amer 
ica he is known chiefly as the author of "Prehistoric Times," 
of the " Origin of Civilization," and of other important works 
in the same direction. These books have been translated 
into several languages, the first named being now published 
in French, German, Swedish, Danish and Russian. Others 
have been widely issued in the same way, besides running 
4 



74 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

through several editions in England itself. Sir John Lub- 
bock has done valuable work as a scientific specialist, having 
written for the Ray Society, important papers on the " Origin 
and Metamorphoses of Insects," and on the curious gen- 
era named B Thysanura " and " Collembola ; " while other 
scientific memoirs have been contributed by him to the 
Transactions of the Royal Society, the Linnean, and other 
philosophical associations of which he is a prominent mem- 
ber. Of several he has been President, the Entomological 
Society, the Ethnological Society, and the Anthropological 
Institute ; besides being Vice-President of the British 
Association, the Royal Society, and other learned bodies, 
both British and foreign. 

His active political career begun in 1865, when he first 
stood as a Liberal candidate for the Western Division of 
the County of Kent, in which he resides. Defeated by a 
small majority, he stood again in 1868, with Mr. Angerstein, 
against Sir Charles Mills and Mr. John Y. Talbot, to be 
once more unsuccessful, though defeated by only 50 ma- 
jority. He was soon afterwards elected to represent the 
borough of Maidstone, and was re-elected in 1874. In 
1868 he was asked to stand for the University of London, 
an honor of a high character, which he felt compelled to 
decline, because of promises made to his friends in 
Kent. He is now Vice-Chancellor of that University, hav- 
ing been elected to succeed George Grote, — banker, his- 
torian, and philosophical republican. 

In the House of Commons Sir John Lubbock's career 
has been of great usefulness. Classed properly among the 
" Independent " members, he cannot be counted as an 
" Irreconcilable." His largest work has been in the direc- 



SIR JOHN LUBBOCK. 75 

tion of education, and other matteis in which he might 
properly be deemed of great service. 

lie has given loyal and earnest service to the work of 
perfecting the Elementary School Laws, but the best part 
of his efforts in this field have been in connection with the 
Endowed Schools and the Royal Commission on Public 
Schools, of which, and of the Commission for the Advance- 
ment of Science, Sir John Lubbock was a prominent mem- 
ber. He was also active in promoting various reforms in 
connection with national universities. The student of Eng- 
lish affairs will readily bear in mind the great abuses which, 
it has been shown, had crept into the great public and en- 
dowed schools of England. Originally designed, in almost 
every instance, to be accessible to the poorest boy in the 
realm, they had grown to be largely viewed as instrumen- 
talities for cheapening education to the favored classes, or 
sinecures for well-paid teachers. The report made by Sir 
John Lubbock's commission has largely exposed these 
abuses, and in preparing the way for their correction, has 
also indicated a radical change in policy. Even under 
present conditions a generation will hardly elapse before 
these schools, in many instances so consolidated as to make 
stronger those that remain, will form, as they were intended 
to do, a complete collegiate link between the more elemen- 
tary and preparatory schools- and the great universities, 
and will be as accessible to the studious poor as but 
recently they were to the fortunate rich or those whom they 
patronized and aided. 

In other work, such as the Bank Holidays Acts, the In- 
ternational Coinage Commission, the Act for the Protection 
of Ancient Monuments, as well as in the support of those 



76 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

measures of political reform and economic legislation which 
have come up during his parliamentary career, Sir John 
Lubbock has been active and prominent. He has usually 
voted with the most advanced wing of the Liberal party, 
though not following the smaller minority in opposition to 
all Royal grants and similar measures. 

In person Sir John Lubbock is of middle height, rather 
slender figure, with fair Anglo-Saxon face, features and 
complexion. As a speaker he is easy and fluent in manner 
and words, while as to matter he is direct and weighty — 
speaking from a full mind always. His political career bids 
fair to bring returns worthy of high ambition, and is certain 
to be full of honorable service. He is prominent among 
an increasing class in British politics — men of wealth, at 
least of independent means, of high culture, good birth, and 
eminent intellectual ability — a class comprising such men 
as Fawcett, Dr. Lyon Playfair, Huxley, Frederic Harrison, 
Thorold Rogers, Chamberlain, Auberon Herbert, Cowen, 
Sir Charles Dilke, and others too numerous now to name in 
these pages • — a class of men who seem destined to lead 
their nation through the peaceful ways of ameliorative re- 
forms, into the larger liberties and ordered equities of a 
practically democratic future. 



V. 

Joseph Cowen. 




HIS gentleman represents his native borough 
a distinction not often attained in the British 
House of Commons. Newcastle is an ancient 
burg, filled with a sturdy and industrious constituency, 
who have never willingly brooked harsh authority, 
and have always been apt at asserting themselves and 
their rights. Founded by King William Rufus or the Red, 
— though its river had long before been a landing-place for 
the Romans, the Picts and the harrying Danes with whom 
Alfred the Great effected peace by dividing England with 
them, — it afterwards became known for its coal mines. 
Now, its shipping, commerce and manufactures are second 
only to its mining interests. They hold together one of 
the most thoroughly homogeneous communities, in a poli- 
tical sense, that can be found in England. It has always 
been Radical — often turbulent, seldom inconsistent. Mr. 
Cowen is not only " native, and to the manner born," 
identified with all the activities of the place, but, as the 
proprietor and political director of the Newcastle Chronicle, 



78 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

is in a notable sense its representative. The fact of this 
proprietorship gives him a more than personal im- 
portance. Within a few years past, the country or 
" provincial" press of Great Britain has become a great 
power, both as to enterprise and political importance. Mr. 
Gladstone recognized this fact three or four years ago in 
a speech made to his Greenwich constituency. The New- 
castle Chronicle is one of the most influential of this class, 
and is especially so in its attitude towards all advanced 
politics. Its tone has always been aggressively Radical, 
as much so when, one hundred years since, the Ameri- 
can colonies and their action were the chief topic of dis- 
cussion, as at the present time when the extension of 
the suffrage to the Agricultural Laborers, and the visit of 
the Prince of Wales to India, constitute the principal 
themes of debate. 

Joseph Cowen is the son of Sir Joseph Cowen,. Knight. 
He was born near Newcastle at Blayden Burn in 1831, 
and is, therefore, in his forty-fourth year. His father, who 
represented the same borough for many years, began life 
as an artisan, but when the discovery of gas was being 
utilized, he made a number of ingenious inventions which 
greatly facilitated the manufacture. He soon grew to be 
a rich and influential citizen, and was known for liberal 
views and public spirit, as well as quaint ways and homely 
wit. His eldest - son, the present member, was carefully 
educated near his birth place, and then entered Edinburgh 
University, graduating with honor as a classical and general 
scholar. This University has always had a wide reputa- 
tion for the debating societies connected therewith, and at 
these Mr. Cowen took a leading place, being distinguished 



JOSEPH COWEN. 79 

for readiness in debate and facility as a public speaker. 
With the exception of having acquired during his (twenty 
years>) later mingling with the Northumbrian people, some- 
thing of their deep and not unmusical pronunciation, Mr. 
Cowen has already shown in the House that his ability as 
a debater has not diminished by comparative disuse. 

A friendly writer and evidently an admirer, thus writes 
of Mr. Cowen's political life : — 

" In 1848 Mr. Cowen began to distinguish himself in 
connection with those public movements which sought 
that extension of the franchise Pitt meditated towards the 
close of the last century. In this course he followed faith- 
fully the footsteps of his father, who had been a Radical 
in days when Radicalism involved something bordering on 
social proscription. Sir Joseph Cowen formed one of the 
intrepid band of North country reformers who met on New- 
castle Moor to protest against the Peterloo massacre. To 
the enthusiasm of the idealist, Mr. Cowen unites a sagacious 
common sense which the sternest realist might envy. This 
combination of faculties gives to his nature that equipoise 
which is necessary for practical statesmanship. With the 
deepest sympathy, and the most generous consideration for 
erratic politicians, Mr. Cowen has never shared their illu- 
sions. When the Crimean war arose, the member for 
Newcastle was not led astray by the sentiment with which 
so many of our countrymen regarded that tragic episode 
in the history of Europe. On the contrary, he belonged 
to a school of politicians who conceived the war a mistake. 
The Foreign Affairs Committee, with which he was con- 
spicuously associated, did what it could to unveil the dip- 
lomatic intrigue by which we had drifted into that in- 



80 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

glorious, even if triumphant, campaign. Almost contem- 
poraneous with the close of the conflict, the Northern Re- 
form Union was called into existence, and of that union 
Mr. Cowen became the treasurer. The work done by this 
association was enormous, and of that work Mr. Cowen 
was the animating spirit. At once by tongue, and pen, 
and purse, he contributed to arouse the North from the 
political indifference into which the country had unhappily 
sunk. The success which this devotion achieved was at- 
tested by the political enthusiasm it evoked. When the 
Reform agitation — so long the mere stalking-horse of 
official statesmen — had reality breathed into it in govern- 
mental circles by the earnestness of Mr. Gladstone, no- 
where was that earnestness more powerfully seconded 
than in Northumberland. The political demonstrations of 
1866 and 1867 which took place in Newcastle are among 
the most memorable events in the public history of that 
epoch. The important part Mr. Cowen's energy and 
organizing power played in these demonstrations is known 
to all who know Northumbrian politics. At the present 
moment the member for Newcastle is president of a 
League which is directing its energies to securing that as- 
similation of the county and borough franchise and equali- 
zation of electoral districts, of which the late Earl Durham 
was so conspicuous an advocate. As a member of the 
Council of the Anti-State-Church Association, and of the 
Executive of the Birmingham League, Mr. Cowen has done 
good service to the causes represented by these organiza- 
tions. 

"Some time ago Mr. Disraeli said our position would 
be improved by ' a little less activity at home and a little 



JOSEPH COWEN. 8 1 

more activity abroad.' We doubt if, in the sense the 
Premier meant these words to be understood, Mr. Cowen 
would endorse either proposition. His activity at home is 
known and read of all men, and he is not the friend of 
that intermeddling foreign policy which has so often 
rendered England odious to Continental Europe. Never- 
theless, no man has been more distinguished for the 
operative sympathy which he has shown for the leaders in 
the great struggles that have done so much to transform 
the political institutions of the Continent. To Poland, to 
Hungary, to Italy, he has been one of the most important 
friends these countries ever found in England. With 
Kossuth, with Mazzini, with Garibaldi, Mr. Cowen was on 
terms of the closest 'intimacy, and towards the illustrious 
triumvirate he has ever entertained an appreciation worthy 
of their characters. The last letter Mazzini wrote was 
written to Mr. Cowen, and one of the first in which Gari- 
baldi broached his scheme for the regeneration of the 
Campagna came to the member for Newcastle." 

Mr. Cowen possesses a character so calm and generous, 
that his friends are enthusiasts over him, and the feelings 
he arouses are attachments, not admirations only. When 
General Garibaldi was in England just before the British 
Legion was formed, he was the guest of Mr. Cowen, who 
also presented him with a sword of honor subscribed for 
by his admirers. The crowning friendship of this period, 
Mr. Cowen considers to be his intimate and affectionate 
relations with Joseph Mazzini. The Italian publicist and 
republican has left behind him a small but influential body 
of Englishmen, over whose intellectual lives and opinions 
his own views were almost paramount. Peter A. Taylor, 
A* 6 



82 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Mr. Stansfield, Joseph Cowen, William J. Linton, the well- 
known wood engraver and writer- (for forty years the fore- 
most republican worker and thinker in England), are 
among the better known of this school. These associa- 
tions give the Member for Newcastle a knowledge of Eu- 
ropean politics from the stand-point of republican endeav- 
or which is rare in Parliament at present, and is only 
equalled by that possessed by Peter A. Taylor, the mem- 
ber for Leicester. 

Mr. Cowen has served for several years as a member 
of the Newcastle Town Council, and, as may be inferred, 
has taken an active part in all local movements of a worthy 
character. "Previous to entering the House of Com- 
mons, he was repeatedly solicited to allow himself to be 
nominated as a candidate for Parliamentary honors. 
These solicitations, however, were invariably declined; but 
on the death of his father, which occurred rather suddenly 
towards the close of 1873, he was practically compelled to 
stand for Newcastle. Scarcely had he been elected as the 
successor of his sire in the representation of that ancient 
town ere the dissolution of Parliament took place, and Mr. 
Cowen was again plunged into all the turmoil of a contest- 
ed election." In this contest his energy and eloquence 
were so marked and exercised so large an influence, as to 
attract national attention to his canvass. Long before, 
political managers on all sides had been compelled to take 
note of the movements of the great mining population, of 
which Newcastle is the centre. A community which could 
gather at short notice and in peaceful order, demonstra- 
tions numbering from twenty-five thousand to double that 
number, was one not to be lightly left unregarded by a 



JOSEPH COWEN. 83 

governing class or classes, whose leaders make it the study 
of their political lives to ascertain how little they can give 
and how much they may withhold. Mr. Cowen has al- 
ready shown himself to possess a commanding influence 
with this population. This gives him in the House an im- 
portant position. Of his oratorical capacity, the " Beehive " 
biographer thus writes : — 

" It is said of one of the most accomplished of English 
actresses — a lady with quite a genius for her profession — 
that when satisfied of thoroughly comprehending what she 
meant to act, she never troubled herself further, assured 
that all else might be left to natural and spontaneous im- 
pulse. Something akin to this feeling is at the root of Mr. 
Cowen's oratorical success. A perfect comprehension of 
great political questions by an earnest and capable man 
unlocks the fountains of sensibility, and exercises over an 
audience that mesmeric influence which constitutes the 
triumph of eloquence. Few men have entered the House 
of Commons in recent years who possess a more thorough 
comprehension alike of English and European politics, 
who have greater capacity for work, greater sympathy for 
the people, or a more intelligent appreciation of those in- 
dustrial and political problems with the just solution of 
which the weal of England is indissolubly associated. 
Prediction is proverbially dangerous, but with the vigor of 
earlier years restored, there is really no political position 
to which, should the emergency arise, Mr. Cowen may not 
only adequately but honorably fill. His parliamentary 
career has been yet too brief fully to disclose his powers. 
During the greater portion of last session he was laid 
aside from duty by illness, precipitated by overwork. The 



84 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

moment, however, that he had sufficiently recovered, he 
devoted himself to Parliamentary duty with characteristic 
assiduity. Throughout the present session his attendance 
has been unflagging, his name appearing in nearly every 
division. To all questions connected with the social wel- 
fare of the people he has given the closest attention. His 
speech on the Friendly Societies Bill was, in many respects, 
the best delivered on the subject ; and as a vindication of 
the people from charges too frequently hurled against 
them, it was pre-eminently successful. As a business man, 
Mr. Cowen's skill, integrity, and sagacity are universally 
recognized. The importance of this fact can scarcely be 
overrated in a country where it is almost impossible to 
achieve the highest political success without a practical 
knowledge of commercial questions. Mr. Cowen married 
early. His wife is the daughter of John Thomson, Esq., 
Fatfield. His family consists of a daughter and son." 

During the session of 1875, Mr. Cowen participated in 
several debates — relating to the County Suffrage Exten- 
sion, the act relating to Labor combinations and disputes, 
the proposition to pay the expenses of the royal trip to 
India, and that arising from Mr. PlimsolFs bill and agita- 
tion for the better protection of seamen. In the latter dis- 
cussion, as the representative of a great shipping mart, his 
vote and words were influential. It is clear that Mr. 
Joseph Cowen's public career, so fairly begun, with ample 
background of preparation behind it, has a long foreground 
over which to advance with increasing usefulness. He 
has a happy home, two fine children, and that guarantee of 
happiness which lies in the confidence of friends and neigh- 
bors. His exertions have not been confined to political 



JOSEPH COWEN. 85 

efforts only, but in all movements, such as co-operation, 
arbitration, temperance, education, he has been a friendly 
counsellor and active advocate. The same admiring writer 
closes the sketch, before quoted, with words which those 
who know Mr. Cowen best do not regard as overdrawn : 
"Though yet only in the meridian of life, he has crowded 
into that life an amount of work which very many who 
have reached the allotted span of existence have failed to 
achieve. With ample resources Mr. Cowen shuns the pleas- 
ures of sense, having early learned to ' scorn delights and 
live laborious days/ Alike in purity, elevation, and devo- 
tion of character, and breadth of sympathy, Joseph Cowen 
is an example to the age in which his lot is cast." 



VI. 
Robert Meek Carter. 




MONG the eighteen members of the House of Com- 
mons who voted against the recent appropriation of 
£60, 000 from the Imperial treasury towards defray- 
ing the larger portion of the expenses of the East Indian jour- 
ney of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, was the senior 
member for the important borough of Leeds, Yorkshire. In 
English politics that vote probably places Mr. Carter among 
the " Irreconcilables " — certainly it ranks him with those who 
are classified as " Independents." It required a considerable 
amount of political devotion, or the courage which comes 
from the consciousness of having behind the vote a constitu- 
ency who will not only sustain the member but endorse the 
act. Such a vote requires almost as much moral force or 
"fanaticism " on the part of the British member, as it did ten 
years before the secession civil war for a northern represen- 
tative to vote against the Fugitive Slave Law in an Amer- 
can Congress. The vote and the popular excitement 
attending it marks one of the steps in English politics, from 
which in the future the critic, student and statesman will 
date marked results. Moncure D. Conway writes as fol- 



ROBERT MEEK CARTER. 87 

lows in relation to these demonstrations, and especially that 
held in Hyde Park, which seems to have been most 
formidable : 

w All the bright sunshine — which some authorities have 
suggested was diabolically manufactured — and the luxuri- 
ant verdure of the park could not make the scene idyllic. It 
is the most angry, and at the same time the most calm and 
orderly popular demonstration which has occurred in Lon- 
don during the fourteen years in which I have resided here. 
Strange to say, the Provincial papers are coming in bring- 
ing telegrams sent to them from London on Sunday night, 
saying that the Hyde Park meeting had ended in a riot, 
and that the military had been called out. These distant 
journals passed the London papers on their way, which will 
make them aware that they have been hoaxed. # * # The sim- 
ple truth is that it was the very largest meeting ever held 
in London. No one wishing to state the truth could pos- 
sibly estimate it less than a hundred thousand people, and 
my own belief is that there were at least one hundred and 
fifty thousand present. The papers attempt to convey the 
impression that even the numbers, as diminished by them, 
were made up to a large extent by the habitual loungers in 
the park • but the brightest Sunday does not usually show 
in the park a thousand people." * * ? * # 

" There was a considerable number of peers, and also 
of members of the House of Commons, standing in the 
crowd, within easy ear-shot of the speaker, and they have 
certainly not heard any speech in either of their Houses 
this session so eloquent as that of Bradlaugh on the pres- 
ent occasion." 

" The multitude," continued Mr. Conway, " cheered 



88 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

only the boldest portions of the orator's utterances. One 
of those manifestations occurred when Bradlaugh cried, 
' This Prince of Wales, for whom our money is spent, is no 
Prince of ours ; he is Prince of the wealthy classes.' The 
other instance was when he said. ' If these great popular 
meetings, and their protests against the diversions of pub- 
lic moneys to Princes, continue to be despised by Parlia- 
ment, on the next occasion when a grant is proposed to a 
Prince, we will carry our petition and our protest ourselves 
into Westminster Hall.' This was followed by several 
minutes of uproarious unanimous approval. While Brad- 
laugh was speaking, six telegrams were brought at different 
times and handed to him by official messengers. Each was 
addressed to ' Charles Bradlaugh, Esq., Hyde Park.' Each 
was from some large city, where a similar mass meeting 
was being held at the same hour, and they announced the 
passing in the six cities of resolutions protesting against 
the grant to the Prince. In one week there have been 
held in the country forty vast meetings of the same charac- 
ter. It had been announced that a meeting of the Durham 
miners, who are in the habit of carrying to their meetings 
the portraits of popular leaders as flags, the portrait of 
John Bright — who has kindled great displeasure by even his 
qualified approval of the grant to the . Prince — was carried 
in procession hung with crape. Bradlaugh having men- 
tioned Bright's name, some present were inclined to hiss, 
but the orator quickly raised his hand to hush such, and 
said solemnly, ' His name is now to be received with re- 
gret, but not with anger ; he has done the people great ser- 
vices ; and no crape is so mournful as that speech with 
which he himself has obscured an honored name.' " 



ROBERT MEEK CARTER. 89 

When the meeting closed, — which it did, writes Mr. Con- 
way, without disorder, — the orator, escorted by the marshals 
and their depifties, went through the Park and left in a cab, 
driving away amid loud cheers. Mr. Conway writes — 

"And so ended a meeting whose significance I have 
certainly not overestimated. Royalty in England cannot 
stand many more such gatherings of indignation : and I 
am confidant that the chances of future appropriations 
of the people's money by the ' Ring ' of princelings which 
has so long fed on the English Exchequer have been con- 
siderably diminished by the proceedings of Sunday last." * 

These facts show the importance to be attached to the 
opposition indicated by the eighteen noes, and the out of 
doors demonstrations. The men who hold them are all 
voters and can make themselves felt. Mr. Carter's vote 
was endorsed by a very large meeting in his own borough, 
attended by about 150,000 persons and presided over by a 
prominent alderman of the place. 

This vote is in full sympathy with the opinions of a 
gentleman who is recognised as one of the strongest among 
the provincial radical leaders in Great Britain; as 
well as a practical and careful business member and citi- 
zen. Robert Meek Carter was born poor, the son of a 
peasant, and is now wealthy. Unlike many others whose 
lives can be summed up in the same way, the opinions of his 
earlier manhood, formed when struggling in sympathy 
with his conditions and associates, have matured and 
grown with his prosperity, animating his public career and 
shaping its actions. His life is one of marked activities 
and great usefulness. 

* Cincinnati Commercial's London Letter, July 20, 1875. 



90 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Mr. Carter is now in his sixty-first year, having been 
born in 1814 at the hamlet of Sheffling, near Spun Head 
in the East Riding of Yorkshire. His father was at that 
time successfully cultivating a small farm, but became in- 
volved at the close of the European war and was compelled 
to abandon his occupation. For five or six years he work- 
ed as a laborer, and then recommenced business as a com- 
mon carrier, between the Yorkshire towns of Hull and Bur- 
lington. At an early age Robert accompanied and assist- 
ed his father, living two nights of each week in the car- 
rier's cart. He was often compelled at night and in the 
winter time, to walk the distance between the two towns. 
At eight years of age he went to reside with his uncle, a 
farmer. Here he had the privilege of attending school dur- 
ing the three winter months, walking four miles daily to and 
from the school house. His mother died when he was ten 
years old, and, at twelve, Robert began his active life as a 
farm hand. • He remained with his uncle till he was sixteen 
and then removed to' Leeds (in 1830) where he obtained 
work in a cloth mill. A younger brother had preceded 
him there. 

The borough of Leeds is the chief seat of the woolen 
cloth manufactory in England, and its operative population 
are regarded as among the best and most intelligent of 
their class. Leeds is the seat of one of the largest and 
most profitable co-operative societies, and of the most suc- 
cessful Building and Loan Associations ; and is the centre 
of the " Yorkshire Association of Mechanics' Institutes," 
of which it has one of the largest, with excellent classes, 
lectures, library and well appointed collection of models, 
etc., for technical and industrial art, applied science, phi- 



ROBERT MEEK CARTER. 9 1 

losophy and mechanics. The bright and active boy, who 
now as a man represents this great constituency, took up 
his residence there just when the first impetus was being 
given to the movements which during the past forty years 
have wrought such great and beneficial changes in the 
condition of the laboring people of Great Britain. 

Robert Meek Carter's first employment was in working 
"a gig" for raising the nap of cloth. He and his brother 
roomed together, and on their earnings (fourteen shillings, 
about $3.36 per week) managed to live quite comfortably. 
Robert attended night school, subscribed to a library, and 
also connected himself with a famous local Sunday school 
in Wortley, a suburb of Leeds, which was held in a black- 
smith's shop. It still exists, and is known as the Zion 
School. The Beehive says : 

" When only nineteen years old, he was placed at the 
' man side ' of the ' gig ' and received a man's wages, 
viz., 22s. per week. Continuing to show aptitude for his 
work, he was raised to the position of foreman three years 
afterwards, and held two or three different situations in 
this capacity. In 1844 the cloth trade of Leeds was in a 
very depressed state, and work was scarce. This com- 
pelled Mr. Carter to seek for some other occupation. He 
was successful in obtaining a position * # # as weighman. 
After a few years, Mr, Carter conceived the idea of begin- 
ning business on his own account as a coal merchant, and 
he was bold enough to rent a yard in the Calls. Persever- 
ance and attention soon brought him custom, and very 
soon he was in a position to purchase the coal-yard which 
he holds to this day, in addition to others. 

" Mr. Carter now took up his residence in the heart of 



92 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Leeds, and his business tact being noticed by some mem- 
bers of the Board of Highway Surveyors and others, he 
was asked to join the Board, which he did. His hon- 
orary labors here, and also in connection with Zion 
Sunday School (which had now become a flourishing in- 
stitution), brought him into prominence, and in the year 
1850 he was invited by a number of ratepayers in Hol- 
beck to become a candidate in the Radical interest for 
a seat in the Town Council, and was returned unop- 
posed." * 

His active public life was now fairly begun. While 
serving for three years in the town council he became a 
prominent member of the various societies already re- 
ferred, to, and of other associations for Political and 
Social Reform. He developed ready talent as a speaker, 
was pithy and direct, but was most formidable as an 
organizer. A vigorous opposition was made by the Whigs 
to his re-election as a Town Councillor, but he was 
successful, polling the largest vote that had been cast up 
to that date, (1853). He was re-elected for four terms, 
serving in the Council for twelve years. He was then 
elected as alderman and served until November 1874, 
when he resigned on account of the pressure of his 
parliamentary duties. During all these years of muni- 
cipal service, he came to be recognized as the leading 
Radical of both his town and section. He participated 
actively in the Chartist agitation, though opposing the 
physical force demonstrations, which ended so disastrously 
for many of the most sincere leaders. During the interest 

* Beehive " Portrait Gallery," 2d series, London, 1875. 



ROBERT MEEK CARTER. 93 

aroused in Garibaldi's efforts for the liberation of Italy, 
he aided by purse and personal exertions. His name is 
prominent in the cooperative and other social-economic 
and ameliorative reforms, which have taken such deep root 
in the portion of England of which he is a resident. 
Leeds possesses two notable provincial papers, the Mercury 
and the Express, and of the latter Mr. Carter is the chief 
proprietor. It is widely circulated and very influential, 
ranking in that regard next to the Newcastle Chronicle, 
owned by Mr. Joseph Cowen, M. P. for that ancient burgh. 
A marked tribute to the increasing power of the country 
press of Great Britain, is the pecuniary interest which 
ambitious politicians are obtaining in their proprietorships. 
Mr. Carter's interest in the Express began early, however, 
when it was struggling and required outlay, being then the 
organ of new and somewhat unpopular ideas. The Leeds 
Mercury is better known in the United States, owing to 
the fact that its proprietor and editor, Edward Baines, 
Esq., was prominent in the West India Emancipation 
agitation, and since then as an active member of the 
British Anti-Slavery Society. He wrote profusely and ef- 
fectively against American slavery, and many of his pa- 
pers were republished on this side of the Atlantic. Both 
papers and their proprietors were the active friends of the 
Union cause and materially assisted in keeping the public 
sentiment of their important section in that direction. 
Mr. Baines represented Leeds in more than one Par- 
liament. 

Mr. Carter long since became, with all this activity, a 
recognized leader of the Radical party, and at the begin- 
ning of the last Reform agitation he was made the Presi- 



94 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

dent of the "Radical Reform League" of his section. 
With all these public activities, he did then and still does 
conduct large business enterprises. He is still largely en- 
gaged in the coal business, has large interests in two col- 
lieries, and owns and conducts a cloth finishing mill, which 
finishes one-third of all the cloth exported to China from 
Great Britain. 

A biographical sketch says of his later political career, 
that: — "In the year 1866, this League got up one of the 
grandest political demonstrations that ever took place in 
the country. It was held on Woodhouse Moor, and was 
attended by about 250,000 persons. There were numerous 
platforms erected, and the whole proceedings were admir- 
ably carried out under Mr. Carter's direction. In the 
evening a great meeting was held in the Town Hall, under 
Mr. Carter's chairmanship. The demonstration was at- 
tended by Mr. John Bright, Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. 
Leatham, Mr. Beales, iClr. Ernest Jones, Mr. George Pot- 
ter, and others. 

" In 1868, the Leeds Radical Reform League selected 
Mr. Carter as their candidate for the general election then 
ensuing. He was accepted, along with Mr. Edward Baines, 
at a meeting of the entire Liberal party, and was returned 
M.P. for Leeds, receiving upwards of 15,000 votes. In 
the House of Commons, Mr. Carter has pursued a straight- 
forward, consistent course, endeavoring to make himself a 
practically useful member, rather than a fussy, talkative 
one. At the last general election, Mr. Carter was again 
selected by the Liberal party along with Mr. Baines. The 
latter, however, in consequence of his sectarian education 
views and other reasons, was defeated • but Mr. Carter was 



ROBERT MEEK CARTER. 95 

returned at the head of the poll, receiving no fewer than 
15,390 votes." * 

In the House of Commons, though not a frequent 
speaker, he is one always listened to, because that practical 
assembly recognizes in Mr. Carter the fact that he has 
always something to say when he rises to speak, and that 
he draws from wide knowledge and a large personal expe- 
rience in presenting his reasons and stating the conclusion 
he has reached. 

In the current movements of the day, Mr. Carter's 
position is logically related to his past agitation. His votes, 
as shown by Hansard's reports, have supported Sir Charles 
Dilke's propositions with regard to the re-distribution of 
seats, Mr. Dixon's bills for a National system of unde- 
nominational education, and Mr. Trevelyan's measure for 
the Agricultural Franchise. He has voted with Macdon- 
ald, Burt and Mundella, on labor questions, and with Mr. 
Peter A. Taylor, in opposition to Royal grants. 

The Beehive writer says of him — that 

"Mr. Carter's success may be taken as a lesson by 
every workingman, and by all who desire to raise them- 
selves in the social scale. The positions of trust and of 
honor which he has filled, and now fills, have come to him, 
not because he sought them, but because he was worthy to 
occupy them. His industry has been great, and his hon- 
orary labors extraordinary. Yet he never appeared in a 
fuss nor in a hurry. His private virtues, like his pub- 
lic ones, are of the highest kind. Strict integrity and 
purity of life are his strong characteristics ; and to his 

* Beehive " Portrait Gallery." 



96 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

sound advice in matters of business and of finance many a 
man in Leeds and elsewhere owes much. In his political 
conduct, Mr. Carter acts fairly and openly with his oppo- 
nents. This view of his action was once represented by one 
of the most respected of Leeds vicars, who said of him : — 
'I like Mr. Carter as an opponent, for he always hits 
straight out from the shoulder.' " 



PART II. 

THE LABOR AGITATION AND ITS 
FRIENDS. 



VII. 

Thomas Hughes. 




N tracing the progress of the various movements 
which have during the last forty-five years 
exercised so marked an influence on English 
affairs, and especially on the condition, political and 
social, of the working masses, the decade embraced 
between 1850 and i860 is worthy of especial notice. 
So far as political agitation was concerned, that ten years ap- 
peared to pass with but little more than a ripple on the 
surface of feeling. Yet two remarkable forces were at work, 
organizing the social and economic side of that Democratic 
growth, which is now so energetically re-occupying the 
political arena. The forces or movements referred to are in a 
large generalization, resolved into but one — and a writer in 
Blackwood's Magazine* thus indicates its character : "A new 
power has been introduced into our political system, new 
forces are at work within the pale of the Constitution. 
The Government has become national in the fullest sense 



* " The State, the Poor, and the Country." April, 1870. 



IOO BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

of the word ; and with the change a new breath of life is 
stirring society. New views are also rapidly forming ; new 
hopes and inspirations are entering into the hearts of the 
masses." The rule of the middle-class, adds this writer, 
"has come to an end, and the doctrines which regulated 
the legislation of that period are now being tested and 
considered from a different, indeed opposition principle. 
* * * For nearly forty years the prime object of our 
legislation has been the interests of the consumers ; now. 
we shall soon have the masses advocating their own inter- 
ests as producers." 

Mr. Thomas Hughes has had a large share in the direc- 
tion of one of the two forces that have tended to bring into 
prominence the interests of Production — especially of its 
most important factor, Labor. His connection with Co-op- 
eration and its organization in Great Britain, is his highest 
title to that general esteem to which he may now fairly lay 
claim. In 1850, the European reaction was attended by 
a subsidence of radical agitation in England. The defeat 
of the State-help movement in France, as illustrated by the 
failure of the national workshops, as well as of that of the 
various Labor societies, that had received aid from the 
French Republic in 1848-9, was followed in Great Britain 
by a remarkable increase of Trades' Union strength, and 
an equally vigorous growth of self-help in- the form of 
Co-operative Distribution or Stores. Among the very earliest 
movements in the direction of Co-operation was that of the 
society known as " Christian Socialists," of which the late 
Canon Kingsley, — whose " Alton Locke " had become the 
inspiration of every aspiring youth in the ranks of Labor, 
and had attracted the minds of many others to its condition '; 



THOMAS HUGHES. 10 1 

— the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice, Vansittart Neale, 
Mr. Ludlow, the present "Registrar of Friendly Societies,"* 
the Chevalier St. Andre, and others, more or less widely 
known, with Mr. Hughes, were members of the Co-operative 
stores of Yorkshire and Lancashire, which have since be- 
come so famous as illustrating the advantages of Co-oper- 
ation. Many were already in successful operation, but they 
had not attracted more than local and class attention. One 
of the first efforts of the " Christian Socialists " was the 
organization of a " Co-operative Tailors Society," which con- 
tinued in existence for a few years. Not long before this 
period, Thomas Hood's mournful " Song of a Shirt " had 
awakened a new interest in the condition of those who were 
poverty-cursed ■ that interest received intelligent direc- 
tion from the investigations conducted by the Brothers 
Mayhew, — first as the London Chronicle's " Commis- 
sioners," and afterwards on their own responsibility — obser- 
vations which have since been gathered in their remarkable 
volumes — " London Labor and the London Poor." Hence 
it was natural that the coterie of philanthropists and thinkers 
among whom Mr. Hughes was a leader should endeavor to 
aid the handicraft which these investigations showed to be 
in especially bad condition. Another and even more 
useful effort was the organization of the "Working-Men's 
College," of which Mr. Hughes is now President, and over 

* Mr. Ludlow is the present Registrar of Friendly and Benefit 
Societies, Building and Loan Associations, Co-operation Societies, and 
Trades Unions, all of which are now brought under laws enacted for 
their protection and encouragement, and are therefore required to reg- 
ister at his office and render regular statements of their business and 
standing. 



102 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

which the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice # was so long 
the animating soul — the master spirit. It still flourishes 
and works very beneficially, quietly and without cant, to the 
end sought — that of helping laboring men to help them- 
selves to liberal education, by an arrangement of hours, fees, 
tuition, studies, etc., adapted to their circumstances. Mr. 
Hughes graduated in this school to the larger usefulness 
of place and sphere which he now fills. . It is this work 
which places him among the genuine radical leaders of 
England, though in many respects, as the term is commonly 
used, he might be regarded as a moderate or even Con- 
servative-Liberal. 

Thomas Hughes is the second son of a country gentle- 

* The friendship between Messrs. Maurice and Hughes is illus-- 
trated by the following graceful tribute to the former, written to the 
Co-operative Congress of 1872, by the President. 

Brownlow Fold Mills, Bolton, April 2, 1872. 
Dear Mr. Pare : — When I got home last night I heard of the 
death of Mr. Maurice. I feel that I should be quite useless, even if I 
forced myself to take part in the conference to-day and in the public 
meeting. I am therefore going back home, and must ask you to make 
my excuses to the Congress. They will remember that Mr. Maurice was 
the president, 24 years ago, of the Society for Promoting Working 
Men's Associations, in which I learnt my first lessons of Co-operation. 
In this, as in all other good work of the last 40 years, he was a fore- 
most thinker and doer. The first time I was ever in Bolton was with 
him, and Mr. Neale, and other gentlemen, at a social gathering to 
forward the Co-operative movement. I am sure the Congress will 
sympathize with me, even if they do not feel as I do that that the best 
and wisest Englishman I have ever known has left us. Pray say for 
me, that if they like to elect me again to serve on the London Section 
of the Board I will gladly serve. — Ever yours, most truly, 

Thos. Hughes. 



THOMAS HUGHES. IO3 

man, John Hughes, Esq., of Donnington Priory, near 
Newbern, Berkshire. He was born October 23d, 1823, 
and is therefore in his fifty-second year. At an early age 
he was sent to Rugby, then under the Mastership of the 
famous Dr. Arnold, whose reputation is somewhat merged 
for the rising generation in that of his son, Matthew Arnold, 
well known as a scholar and poet, whose writings have had 
a not less marked influence, though less robust, than that 
his famous father exercised. Dr. Arnold was the founder 
of the Broad Church movement, of which Dr. Stanley, the 
Dean of Westminster, and Dr. Temple, Bishop of Exeter, 
are now the leading clerical representatives, and Mr. 
Hughes, himself, one of the foremost lay adherents. 
Mentally and spiritually, Dr. Arnold's career marks an 
epoch. From Rugby, Thomas Hughes entered as an un- 
dergraduate at Oriel College, Oxford. In 1841, he gradu- 
ted with high honors and the degree of Bachelor of Arts. 
His Alma Mater has since conferred on him that of Master. 
His residence at the University was coincident with the 
more advanced stages of the Tractarian movement, under 
the leadership of the now venerable Dr. Pusey. Mr. 
Hughes belonged by right of temperament and early train- 
ing to the liberal wing. He has remained an earnest 
churchman, differing in this respect from the majority 
of those with whom he has been closely associated 
in politics and in social agitations. He entered Lin- 
coln's Inn in 1845, and was admitted to the Bar in 
1848. He was not known publicly at the time, though 
his pen had already become active, training the fine 
literary talent which has since been utilized in his valuable 
and manly books. " Tom Brown's School-days " was pub- 



104 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

lished in 1856 • its companion volume, " Scouring the 
White Horse," in 1858 ; a third volume, "Tom Brown at 
Oxford," appeared some years after; and an admirable 
history of "Alfred the Great," in 1870. He is at present 
engaged on a work relating to the English Church. Mr. 
Hughes prefaces his history of " Alfred the Great " by an 
essay which is notable for the incisive statement it gives 
of his own views of " Kingship," " Democracy," and 
other questions which are the problems of present English 
politics. His definition of " What does Democracy mean " 
to the English, "in these years," is — " Simply an equal 
chance for all ; a fair field for the best men, let them start 
where they will, to get to the front ; a clearance out of 
sham governors, and of unjust privilege, in every depart- 
ment of human affairs. It cannot be too often repeated 
that they who suppose the bulk of our people want less 
government or fear the man who can rule and dare not 
lie, know little of them. * * # They will go for com- 
pulsory education, the organization of labor (including 
therein the sharp extinction of able-bodied pauperism), the 
utilization of public lands, and other reforms of an equally 
decided character. That for these purposes they desire 
more government, not less ; will support with enthusiasm 
measures, the very thought of which takes away the breath 
and loosens the knees of ordinary politicians : will rally with 
loyalty and trustfulness to men who will undertake these 
things with courage and singleness of purpose." Mr. 
Hughes proceeds to argue that true kingship must 
possess the function of " sympathy with the masses." He 
is Carlyleian in his mew, plus a deep and earnest faith in 
the people. He argues that — " This is no age in which 



THOMAS HUGHES. 



I05 



shams or untruths, whether old or new, are likely to have 
a quiet time or a long life of it. In all departments of 
human affairs, religious, political, social — we are travelling 
fast # # # and under the hand and guidance, be sure, 
of Him who made the world, and is willing and able to take 
care of it. * * Individualism no doubt, has its noble side, and 
'every man for himself,' is a law which works wonders; but 
we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that under their action 
English life has become more and more disjointed, threat- 
ening in some directions altogether to fall to pieces." In 
the closing chapter Mr. Hughes looks the political future 
of England full in the face and says : — " All the signs of our 
time tell us that the day of the earthly kings has gone by, 
and the advent of the power of the great body of the 
people, those who live by labor, is at hand. Already a 
considerable percentage of them are as intelligent as the 
classes above them, and as capable of conducting affairs, 
and administrating large interests successfully. * * In 
another generation that number will have increased ten- 
fold, and the sovereignty of the country will virtually pass 
into their hands. * # # It is vain to blink the fact 
that democracy is upon us, that ' new order of society 
which is to be founded by labor for labor,' and the only 
thing for wise men to do is to look it in the face, and see 
how the short intervening years maybe used to the best 
advantage." He adds that the task has been begun and 
the soundest and best of English thinkers are " engaged 
upon the great and inevitable change, whether they dread 
or exult in the prospect. Thus far, too, they all agree that 
the great danger lies in that very readiness of the people 
to act in great masses, and to get rid of individual and 

5* 



I06 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

personal responsibility, which is the characteristic of the 
organizations by which they have gained and secured their 
present positions." This is to be met, Mr. Hughes argues, 
by developing the sense which he has indicated as now 
lacking — that " of personal and individual responsibility." 
Mr. Hughes does not accept the extreme views of 
the " supply and demand " school of political economists, 
especially as applied to the relations of employers and em- 
ployed. His advocacy of co-operation has led him a long 
way from the teachings of the " competitive " theory — that 
which regards the human family as divided into three 
classes, — those who make and produce ; those who buy 
and consume ; and those who pocket the profits arising 
from the management of these operations. Mr. Hughes 
has a decided leaning in the opposite direction, his mental 
habit being tinged with socialism. He has spoken and 
written at length on these matters, though he has managed 
also to keep in the van of practical ameliorative efforts. 
Besides the works named, Mr. Hughes published, in 1873, 
a memoir of his brother, then deceased, of whom he writes 
with great tenderness. He has been for years an oc- 
casional correspondent of the New York Tribune, and some 
of his letters, written during the early Fenian excitement 
and the Alabama negotiations, as well as his very admir- 
able descriptions of the great University boat races on the 
Thames, are among the best contributions that England 
has furnished for the American press. He was an active 
friend of the North during the civil war, but felt very 
keenly and resented rather sharply, the severe arraignment 
of Great Britain made by Mr. Sumner in the American 
Senate, during the session of 1866. 



THOMAS HUGHES. \OJ 

Mr. Hughes failed to secure a re-election to the present 
Parliament, after serving in three preceding ones. He 
was twice elected from Lambeth, one of the Metropolitan 
boroughs, and afterwards from that of Frome, a considerable 
market town, — with some small manufacturing interests, 
principally blankets and cloth, — situated in the loveliest 
part of Somersetshire. The little borough has always been 
of a radical tone in politics, probably in contrast with the 
Tory views of the county electors. Mr. Hughes was an 
active supporter of the Reform League movement, and 
entered Parliament as one of its leading friends. His de- 
feat at Lambeth affords a striking illustration of the inde- 
pendence of his character. The borough is a densely 
populated division of the Metropolis, on the south side of 
the Thames. It begins at Westminster Bridge, and the 
first object that strikes the eye, turning from the Parlia- 
ment Houses, with their wide front of ornate gothic, to 
lock across the river, is a venerable pile, standing amid its 
own grounds, and with the dinginess of centuries gathered 
on its walls. This is Lambeth Palace, the London resi- 
dence of the English Primate, the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. The upper portion of the superb Thames Embank- 
ment runs in front of the Palace, and of the dingy collection 
of pottery works and wharves which stretch above it to 
Vauxhall Bridge. Lambeth proper comprises probably the 
largest division of small householders and stores to be found 
in the great city. There are some large railroad works, 
and shops, but it is in general an aggregation of suburbs, 
inhabited by the mechanic and poorer trading classes. 
" Public houses " abound. The retailers are in great force. 
Mr. Hughes, a doctrinaire on co-operation, which the 



108 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

storekeepers regard as their bane, — a vigorous reformer in 
the matter of false weights and measures, the interference 
with which was a pet grievance, — zealous also as to adul- 
teration of food, etc., and a warm supporter of early closing 
and permissive liquor bills, — was not at all likely to main- 
tain his popularity, after the success of the reform bill had 
worn the edge off the enfranchised householders' suffrage. 
Another count against him was his absolute refusal to de- 
fray anything but the necessary election expenses. Hence 
it was not surprising that he had to abandon his second 
candidacy, retiring before a wealthy city man, to Frome, 
as has been before stated. 

His return to the House of Commons is sincerely desired 
by all the advanced liberals, and as soon as an opening 
occurs it is probable that he will allow his name to be again 
presented. His capacity for work must be very great, as 
he not only conducts a large and profitable chancery prac-. 
tice, but is a laborious and faithful worker on the central co- 
operative board, and a frequent speaker at co-operative and 
other meetings ; while as a writer his pen is always actively 
engaged. He is now President of the College already men- 
tioned, and is one of Mr. Plimsoll's. strongest supporters, be- 
ing Vice President of the " Plimsoll and Seaman's defence 
fund," which was raised to defray the expenses arising from 
the agitation over unseaworthy ships. Mr. Hughes is a 
busy member of the Social Science Association. He is also 
President of the Sydenham Crystal Palace Company, and is 
actively engaged as stockholder and director of many 
co-operative enterprises — the scope of which is now nota- 
bly enlarging, until banks, coal mines, cotton mills, found- 
eries, machine shops and land-owning are embraced by 



THOMAS HUGHES. IO9 

their energies. He is also Colonel of the 19th Regiment 
Middlesex Rifle Volunteers, one of the best drilled organiza- 
tions of its class in the Metropolitan County. In addition 
to these labors, professional, personal and public, he is 
frequently called upon to act as arbitrator or umpire in 
disputes between employer and employed. In this capacity 
he is much respected. Since he has become actively 
engaged in political life, Mr. Hughes- has twice served as 
a member of Royal Commissions — one being appointed to 
enquire into the Sheffield outrages, and the character and 
practices of Trades Unions in general, while the other, a later 
body, is known as the " Labor Laws Commission." Their 
duty was to inquire into the working of the "Master and Ser- 
vants act (1867); the Criminal law amendment act (187 1), 
and finally, the law of conspiracy." The commission consist- 
ed, besides Mr. Hughes, of Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, 
known to Americans from his connection with the Geneva 
Arbitration ; Mr. Russell Gurney, Recorder of London 
(also one of the Mixed Commission which sat in Washing- 
ton for over a year, to adjudicate British claims growing 
out of our civil war), Mr. Justice Smith, Lord Romilly, 
Messrs. Bouverie, Roebuck, Goldney, and Macdonald. 
The legislation into which it inquired has recently been 
swept away almost entirely by an act passed during the 
session of 1875, which nearly abolishes the distinction 
between offences committed by workmen as such and those 
perpetrated by other parties. 

Mr. Hughes voted for the dis-establishment of the 
Irish Church, and with the Gladstone ministry in 1870 and 
1872 in support of the Elementary Education acts. He is a 
member of the Manchester Education Union, which dif- 



I IO BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

fers from the Birmingham League in consenting to 
denominational or "voluntary" schools. During his ear- 
lier Parliamentary life he presented a bill embodying a 
sweeping proposition in relation to the Irish Land ques- 
tion. This measure and the speech he made thereon 
were sharply criticised by the London Times and the Pall 
Mall Gazette. Mr. Hughes in a brief reply illustrated the 
tendency of his thoughts on this subject, when he wrote : 
"You cannot argue as to the land as though it were any 
kind of personal property. Absolute ownership may exist 
in all kinds of personal property." How absolute this may 
be, he illustrated by supposing that a man may throw 
unchallenged a bag containing one thousand guineas into 
the Thames. "But," he continues "I and all the owners 
of land # * # have not made it, and cannot destroy it ; could 
neither have added to it nor lessened it * * # . All that has 
been done since has been to put value upon it, and it is 
this value we speak of as 'real property,' — 'landed pro- 
perty.' " Opinions such as these make him a consistent 
opponent of the Commons Enclosure Acts, by which the 
"common," or it might be said the "public," land, has for 
a number of years past been gradually encroached upon, 
fenced in, and made private property. This system of 
monopolization has been going on very steadily and creates 
great discontent. The English common lands "are the 
remaining proofs of the old British and Saxon commune or 
common Ownership. The feudal system which the Norman 
Conquest perfected, if not introduced, placed the land in 
the hands of a comparatively few families. The commons 
were however numerous up to the close of the last century. 
The people — laborers and freeholders, lords of the manor 



THOMAS HUGHES. I I I 

and the farmers, with the parish clergymen, all possess 
certain rights, such as that of pasturing cows, etc., on these 
commons. 

The laborer's rights are often a sham and are now fast be- 
coming a fiction. The enclosure acts, generally divided 
the land among the abutting freeholders, usually giving it, 
however, to but one landowner, possessing manorial rights. 
This question is a prominent one in the Agricultural Labor- 
ers' Agitation. Mr. Hughes's legal skill, as well as parliamen- 
tary efforts, have both been used in opposition to the land 
greed referred to. He expressed his sympathy with the 
Laborers' Agitation early in its progress. 

But the chief work of Mr. Hughes' public and personal 
career, is the service he has rendered, and the labor and 
ability he has given to the Co-operative movement. It may 
fairly be claimed for him, that to his wise counsel and as- 
sistance — he himself would disclaim the word leadership 
in such connection — is due a very large share of its na- 
tional character, — it might even be said, international 
recognition ; while his advocacy and exposition have been 
marked with a thoroughly comprehensive spirit:. His 
mind has linked the savings of the poor man's pence for 
the poor man's own benefit, with the loftiest ideals of 
social regeneration, through its large recognition of the 
idea of spiritual brotherhood, as well as practical sagacity, 
which dwells in the philosophy and practice of genuine co- 
operation or association. Yet he has been pre-eminently 
practical in his connection with the whole of this remark- 
able effort. He, with Mr. Ludlow, has been the legal ad- 
visor of the several societies, and the one or the other has 
drafted nearly all the acts which have been passed to se- 



I 1 2 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

cure their funds, and encourage their formation. Until 
within a brief period, these societies could own no land, 
could not own or mine coal lands, nor could they do a 
banking business. For several years they were compelled 
to pay income tax, a manifestly unjust ruling, as their 
profits were not incomes in the sense that is understood 
by those who are blessed with such conveniences. Their 
assets or profits are, in fact, trust funds, to be distributed 
among shareholders and customers. At present these so- 
cieties return the amounts paid to their several members, 
so as to enable the Income Tax Commissioners to ascer- 
tain whether any of them possess more than ^"ioo per an- 
num from this and other resources. Under the law no 
individual can own shares in any one of the registered co- 
operative societies to a larger amount than ;£ 200. By a 
parliamentary Return, obtained on motion of Mr. Cowen,the 
member for Newcastle, there were in England and Wales, 
at the close of 1874, " 790 societies, and the amount insured 
was ^"1,657,781. There were 340,930 members. The 
share capital at the end of 1873 was ^"13,334,104 and the 
loan capital ^"431,808. The trade accounts show that the 
cash paid for goods in the year was ^"12,344,780 ; the cash 
receivedfor goods, ^"13,651,127 ; and the average stock-in- 
trade during the period, ,£1,439, 137. The total expenses, in 
the year were £541,284, while the interest on share, loan, 
and other capital was £152,596. With respect to liabili- 
ties and assets, it appears that in England and Wales, the 
liabilities were £4,681,512 ; the reserve fund £83,149 ; 
and the entire assets, £4,430, 334; the value of buildings, 
fixtures and land, £1,361, 197 ; capital invested with other 
industrial and provident societies, £337,81 1 ; and £443,724 



THOMAS HUGHES. I I 3 

invested with companies incorporated under the Com- 
panies' Act. The net profits in the year were as follows : — 
Dispqsable net profits realized from all sources during 
the year, ^958,72 1 ; dividends declared due to members, 
^861,964 ; dividends allowed to non-members, ,£18,555 i 
and the amount allowed in the year for educational pur- 
poses, ,£6,864." Besides the co-operative stores, there are 
a large number of joint-stock operative factories and 
workshops, cotton mills, and foundries. In Oldham alone 
there are about thirty cotton mills owned by the workmen 
themselves, with a capital of about ,£1,400,000, which will 
represent a million and a half of spindles, or nearly one- 
fifth as many as are in operation in the United States. 
Other works are being .established in connection with this 
remarkable growth of the idea of uniting Labor and Capital 
in the same hands. Mr. Hughes has been not only a 
faithful friend, but a bold and independent critic of his 
favorite cause and its operations. Addressing the Fourth 
Annual Co-operative Congress, held at Bolton, 1872, of 
which he was President, he referred to the need of some 
one's being paid to devote his whole time to the business 
of the Central Board, and protested against the narrow 
economy displayed in refusing to employ a secretary ; and, 
alluding to the hearty devotion of some of the friends of 
the movement, used the following language : 

" ' Why try to hold the movement together at all ? Why not let 
it slide and find its own level ?' Well, gentlemen, I have often been 
asked that question, and I have more frequently asked it ©f myself. 
And I will own that I have sometimes had great doubts as to the 
answer. Some of us have spent time which would amount to many 
years of our lives if added up, and not inconsiderable sums of money, 
in preaching and fostering this Co-operative movement. Amongst 



114 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

your northern associations, several old friends of mine and yours have 
killed themselves, without any earthly reward, at this work. Now, 
one can understand Well enough why men should do this for a faith, if 
in our good old English they have got any kind of Gospel or good 
news to tell their fellows. But we are told that the Co-operative 
movement is nothing whatever but a method of doing ordinary bus- 
iness which will, if successful, distribute the products of industry of 
all kinds more equally, and amongst a far larger number of people 
than they reach under the old competitive system — that it is only 
another form of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest 
markets — resting absolutely on those two old pillars of the Temple of 
Mammon, and the less said about morality in connection with it the 
better. I have sometimes been inclined to think, while watching the 
development of our societies, that these critics were, perhaps, right 
after all, and that I and others had made fools of ourselves, and should 
have been certainly richer, and probably wiser, men, if we had just let 
the whole thing alone, and been content with getting our groceries and 
provisions, if we cared to do so, at wholesale prices. But such cold 
fits have never lasted long. It is impossible for any man with eyes in 
his head and a heart in his breast, not to have seen, even in the dark- 
est times, what an educational power of the highest kind lies under 
this Co-operative movement for the great masses of our people. It- 
has already done more, I venture to say, than any other religious 
or social movement of our day. Not even the most blind of our 
opponents can deny that it has made hundreds of thousands of our 
people more prudent and temperate, has developed in them great 
capacities for transacting their own business, and has made them 
conscious in some dim way of that highest mystery of our human 
life, which can only be adequately described in words with which I 
hope all of us are familiar, that we are members one of another, so 
that if one member suffers, all suffer, and if one member rejoices, al[ 
rejoice." * 

The scope and character of the Co-operative move- 
ment, as it has been advocated by Mr. Hughes especially, 

* Report of the Fourth Annual Co-operative Congress, edited by 
G. T. Holyoake, Manchester. 



THOMAS HUGHES. 



"5 



can hardly be more admirably put than in the closing 
words of the same address : — 

" The agitators for violent political changes, for republicanism, 
tbe re-distribution of property, the nationalization of land, can scarcely 
conceal their contempt and aversion for bodies which ignore party 
politics, and are peacefully acquiring their fair share of property and 
land bv the exercise of the silent virtues of temperance, forethought, 
just dealing, and fellowship in work. Well, we must be content to 
suffer their contempt, for with their methods and aims we have nothing 
in common. Extreme free-traders say that we are bringing back the 
evils of protection, and call us ' Socialists.' If they mean that we 
accuse unlimited competition of having been the cause of much of the 
fraud, adulteration, and rascality, which has so deeply tainted trade 
and commerce, we admit the fact. That is our belief; but we ask no 
protection against these evils from any quarter, and have already 
proved that we can protect ourselves. In the same way we cannot 
repudiate the name of ' Socialist,' in so far that it implies a belief that 
human society is intended to be organized, and will not be in its true 
condition until it is organized from the top to the bottom; but we have 
never looked to the state to do this for us, we have only asked the 
state to stand aside and give us breathing room and elbow room to do 
it for ourselves. And the work is going on under our eyes, in many 
directions, and by many agencies outside our own movement. For 
all these' we should be thankful, and prompt to recognize and 
help them forward whenever we have the chance. Meantime, and 
especially at these Congresses, our~ own work must claim our special 
attention. But, while I trust that we shall never lose sight of the 
severely practical method by which we have reached our present posi- 
tion, I must always remind you that ' he who aims the sky shoots 
higher far than they who mean a tree.' And so, while in the next 
three days we shall be rightly engaged in the consolidation of our 
organization in detail, in perfecting the rules and the business arrange- 
ments of existing societies, I hope we may find time for some forecast 
of greater things which are behind. Our foremost thinkers have made 
us already familiar with the ideas of a co-operative banking system. 
Co-operative farms, co-operative manufacturing villages, all of which 



1 1 6 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

must be thought out and worked out before we have made our Eng- 
land (as we mean to make her) the best place for working men to live 
in that the sun ever shone on. 

" Again, with respect to international projects, we cannot and do 
not wish to deny that we do entertain them. We look forward to the 
time when solidarity between the people of different nations and 
countries will become a fact, and when wars will be as obsolete 
between nations as duelling has become between men in our own 
country. But we are not going to preach universal brotherhood with 
a rifle in one hand and a torch in the other, and do not believe it will 
be brought any nearer by violent changes in forms of government." 

Of the same general character is the position assumed 
by Thomas Hughes with regard to the remarkable devel- 
opement of the Trades' Union movement. In i860 he 
acted as Secretary of a committee charged with the pre- 
paration of a report on that subject for the British Social 
Science Association, a report which was presented at the 
Glasgow Congress. The result of the committee's labors 
was printed in a large and valuable volume. In the debate 
on its reception at Glasgow, Mr. Hughes said in comment- 
ing on the different views expressed by the employing and 
employed classes, that as to the latter : — 

" The foundation of that difference was, that they treated the 
labor of their men, which was in fact the lives of their men, on the 
same principles as those on which they treated a dead commodity. 
They most rigorously applied to it the same law of supply and demand 
as they applied to any other commodity, thereby putting the living 
man and inanimate things on the same footing. Well, that might be a 
capital rule of thumb. They might lay down a law and act up to it ; but 
the rule would not work. What had brought on all the discussion as 
to the antagonism of classes ? Simply the attempt to carry that rule 
rigorously out. He believed that had raised those disputes, and 
would continue to the end of time to raise them. They must look from 



THOMAS HUGHES. H7 

a different point of view. They must treat the living man according 
to different rules from those which they applied to the dead material. 

" Here was a committee of thirty gentlemen, amongst whom were 
several influential employers. Two thirds of these gentlemen started 
in the belief that as a rule trades' unions were in the hands of mere 
demagogues, not working men. But, he believed, they were now 
unanimous in the conclusion that this was not so. As was stated in 
the Report, they believed that the leaders of trade societies were 
generally men who represented the feeling of their class, and also able 
and proficient workmen, who really lived by their trade, and who had 
little to do with agitations. They (the committee) were at first almost 
unanimous in their belief that trades' unions fostered bad blood and 
ill-feeling between masters and men ; but from the histories of all the 
strikes he had gone into, he was of opinion that trades' unions tended 
to stop strikes, and not to foster them. " 

He urged arbitrative tribunals as one of the better modes 
of settlement. In reviewing the debate, Mr. Hughes again 
urged that, so far as " supply and demand " were con- 
cerned, other and higher laws had to be considered. He 
had been defied " to distinguish between labor and other 
articles. He need not distinguish them, they would dis- 
tinguish -themselves ; he said the living labor would dis- 
tinguish itself by either helping or hindering its employer, 
and cotton goods could not help and could not hinder him. 
The importance of friendly feelings between masters and 
men had been dwelt on. Could there be friendly feeling 
between a master and a bale of goods ? The attempt to 
apply the law of supply and demand to human labor, as 
rigorously as to cotton, coal and mere commodities, had 
brought on in France the French revolution ; in this 
country Luddite riots, Chartists and rick burning ; and 
slavery in America." 

And it must be said for Mr. Hughes' view, that it is now, 



II 8 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

scarce fifteen years later, coming to be generally accepted 
in Great Britain. Strangely enough, it would seem, the old 
fast and rigid rule is being pressed more and more in re- 
publican America, where it would appear that Co-oper- 
ative politics should more readily educate the interested 
classes into the principles of Co-operative social economy. 
Mr. Hughes however thinks there is hope even for us. 
In a recent article on the " Working Class of Europe," * 
he quotes from the poem of " John o' the Smithy " these two 
stanzas " — 

" But a clear keen voice comes over the sea ; 
It is piercing the gloom of the waning night ; 
Time was, time is, and time shall be 

When John o' the Smithy shall come by his right. 

" And they who have forged the pitiless round 

Which has pressed him hard in body and soul ; 
Shall perish from earth when the grist is ground 
And the mighty miller 1 shall claim his toll ! " 

"The author we believe," adds Mr. Hughes, "was an' 
American, though the scene is supposed to be laid in the 
old world. But if so, and if he intended the ' clear 
keen voice' which was' to declare deliverance and a 
bright day to the working people was to come from the 
west ; if he meant by ' over the sea ' over the Atlantic — he" 
blundered as a seer. The principle of association, which 
is proving to be the Ithuriel's spear for the poor of Europe, : 
has been of home growth. In several of its developments 
that principle is not likely for many generations, if ever, 
to find so congenial a soil in America. Trades' Unionism' 
can never be formidable in a country where the boundary 
* International Reviezu, March, 1874. 



THOMAS HUGHES. II9 

lines of classes are so indistinct, and which has an inex- 
haustible supply of rich land for the discontented to fall 
back upon, though we quite admit, in view of the farmers' 
granges in Illinois and Wisconsin, and miners' combinations 
in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, that the design to fix the 
price at which one's own labor shall be sold is just as 
common in the Great West as in Europe." 

Mr. Hughes reviews, in the article referred to, four 
movements : the report of the British Co-operative congress, 
that of the German Advance Credit Societies, the Artizan 
Laborers and General Dwellings Company, and the Report 
of the Working Men's Clubs and Institute Union. These 
he regards as part of one movement ; — 1. Unions of con- 
sumers or workers to carry on production and distribution ; 
2. Union of workers to obtain capital and utilize credit to 
their own advantage ; 3. Social Union to obtain for the 
artizan the social advantage which club life offers the wealth- 
ier class ; 4. Union to obtain healthier and improved dwell- 
ings and become their own landlords. 

g In concluding his review of these efforts and their 
effects, Mr. Hughes declares that they are ostracising the. 
" evil spirits of irreligion and communism " and that in 
England " the jealousy of capital, which still exists, has no 
dangerous side to it," and in concluding he asserts that 
the Co-operative movement is the most beneficial ordering 
of industrial efforts for the universal good which it is at 
present possible to devise." 

Thomas Hughes is a man of well knit frame, tall in 
Stature, fond of athletic sports, and a good example of the 

' Muscular Christian." He is Anglo-Saxon to the core. 
His complexion is fair, hair deep auburn, eyes blue, his head 



120 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

is large, high and well balanced. As a speaker he is 
ready and more fluent than is common with English ora- 
tors, though he has a little of the hesitancy ot manner 
peculiar to them. There is a vein of ready wit in his 
efforts and he is an admirable presiding officer, though 
there is but little magnetism in his manner. 

In fact, while he never offends by patronizing ways — that 
the essential manliness of his character forbids, — he does 
not attract, except intellectually, those with whom so much 
of his lifework has been performed. He is a college 
man, and in this country would gravitate naturally to Cam- 
bridge and its social and mental influences. There is 
none of the comradeship of the workshop — the fraternity 
of common things and people, — about him. But he is a 
man of high purposes, manliness and vigor : a thinker, 
writer and worker of rare qualities, the sum of whose life 
when added up will prove to have been the product of sin- 
cere and wholesome effort to leave the world better than he 
found it. Mr. Hughes' home life is stated by his friends 
to be charming, and he has much personal popularity in his 
own social circle. 




VIII. 



Anthony John Mundella. 




STRANGER standing in the handsome lobby 
or vestibule of the House of Commons, to 
watch the coming and going of the ever- 
changing crowd, will be very likely to notice a gen- 
tleman of dark complexion, full beard, and strongly 
marked features, above the middle height, slightly 
bent at the shoulders, and with an un-English as- 
pect in his face and appearance, who moves briskly 
through the throng, with a business air, and is often 
accosted by persons whom your chaperon, if he is well 
informed on the habitues ol the place, will name to you as 
the prominent labor agitators, secretaries of various po- 
litical associations, parliamentary agents in a large or small 
way, but generally identified with some reform or educa- 
tional movement and effort. The gentleman referred to 
has the look of a keen, observant, self-possessed man who 
does not under-estimate his own position or capacity. He 
is, in the better sense, a self made man, conscious of his 



I 2 2 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 



title to respect, giving his best to the public service for 
what the age has rendered unto him. If he be, as is 
satirically suggested by some of the press critics, some- 
thing of an egotist, he at least redeems the fault by hon- 
est and wise efforts for his country and" people. One can 
readily see that Anthony J. Mundella, junior member for 
Sheffield, is a man of affairs, strong in the general esteem 
as well as in his own, and with fair prospects of continued 
recognition before him. 

The .un-English look of his face is accounted for by 
the fact that he is, on his father's side, of Italian origin. 
Antonio Mundella was a native of Como, Italy, of good 
family and fair culture, who became a political refugee in 
1S20, in connection with a revolutionary conspiracy against 
the Austrians. He had been educated for the Roman 
priesthood, but his political .bias led him away from that 
position. He settled in Leicester, where he undertook 
to teach pupils, and soon after married Rebecca, daughter of 
T. Allsop, Esq., of that city. Anthony, their son, was born 
March 28th, 1825, and is therefore in his fifty-first year. 
His mother, a woman of great strength of character, intel- 
ligence and ability, possessed a small property and ex- 
hibited a remarkable degree of skill and taste in embroi- 
dering lace. She was her son's teacher for several years, 
but when he was about ten years of age she became nearly 
blind from disease brought on by over application at fine 
lace work. The father's earnings are spoken of as small 
and precarious. 

Anthony Mundella was first sent to a small private 
school, and with his mother's aid, made great progress. 
At ten years of age, however, he was obliged to aid in 



ANTHONY JOHN MUNDELLA. I 23 

maintaining himself, and worked for nearly two years in a" 
printing office. He was fortunate enough, on becoming ap- 
prenticed to the hosiery business, to secure a generous 
employer. At eighteen years he was master of his time, 
which had been well employed, both in business and at the 
Mechanics' Institute of his native town. Before he had 
attained his twentieth year, he married Mary, daughter of 
W. Smith, Esq., a manufacturer at Nottingham. 

Mr. Mundella's politics are the outgrowth of tempera- 
ment and experience, their naturally radical character be- 
ing tempered by the wider observation and larger stakes 
of later life. The " stockingers" of the Midland counties 
were, in his youthful days, a class without much hope, and 
endured much of the misery that comes from poverty. 
The apprentice boy was an adept at writing political 
ballads. At fifteen he heard his own compositions 
sung on the streets or at public meetings. It was in 
the preliminary days of the chartist agitation, and on 
one occasion the earnest youth, then with slightly im- 
proved personal fortunes, and surrounded by influences 
somewhat remote from such radical opinions, identified 
himself in a ringing speech, with that movement. The 
charter, as it was called, demanded the following reforms : 
"Our Union seeks the enactment of Universal Suffrage — the 
admission to the franchise of every" man of twenty-one years of age, 
of sound mind and unconvicted of crime ; Equal Representation, 
— the division of the United Kingdom into equal electoral districts ; 
The Abolition of the Property Qualification now required of 
Members of Parliament, and of all qualifications except the choice 
of the electors ; Vote by Ballot — to prevent Bribery and intimida- 
tion; Annual Parliaments — to insure the responsibility of the 
members to their constituents ; And the Paymfnt of Members— 



1 24 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

rendered necessary by the abolition of the present property qualifica- 
tions."* 

Thomas Cooper, author of the " Purgatory of Suicides, " 
written while he was confined fpr sedition in Leicester 
jail, writes of young Mundella's debut as a political 
speaker, that he " had been appealing strongly one even- 
ing to the patriotic feelings of young Englishmen, men- 
tioning the names of Hampden, Sydney, and Marvell, and 
eulogizing the grand spirit of disinterestedness and self- 
sacrifice which characterized so many of our brave fore- 
runners, when a handsome young man sprang upon our 
little platform and declared himself on the people's side, 
and desired to be enrolled as a Chartist. He did not be- 
long to the poorest ranks, and it was the consciousness 
that he was acting in the spirit of self-sacrifice, as well as 
his fervid eloquence, that caused a thrilling cheer from the 
ranks of the working men. He could not have been more 
than fifteen at that time ; he passed away from us too 
soon, and I have never seen him but once all these years. 
But the men of Sheffield have signalized their confidence 
in his patriotism by returning him to the House of Com- 
mons ; and all England knows if there be a man of energy 
as well as uprightness in that house, it is Anthony John 
Mundella."f 

Mr. Mundella, at the expiration of his apprenticeship, 
was engaged to assist in the management of a factory, and 
at twenty-three he removed to Nottingham, — then as now, 
the centre of the English hosiery manufacture, — where he 



* From an address of the Charter Union, issued April 17, 1848. 
t Autobiography of Thomas Cooper, London, 1872. 



ANTHONY JOHN MUNDELLA. 1 25 

became junior partner in a large firm. This was in 1848, 
in the midst of great political excitement. He soon be- 
came favorably known in local affairs as well as business 
circles, and was chosen Sheriff of Nottingham, in 1854, 
being only twenty-nine years of age. Since then, and be- 
fore entering Parliament, he was elected to the Town 
Council, Presiding Alderman, Justice of the Peace, and 
President of the Chamber of Commerce. He took an 
early and active part in the Volunteer Rifle movement, be- 
coming captain of a company. 

But that part of his active life by which he has be 
come most widely and favorably known — that of organ- 
izing the first English Council of Arbitration and Concili- 
ation—began in 1859 ; when, wearied with the chronic 
troubles and losses growing out of "strikes" and "lock- 
outs." and deeply impressed by his own early experiences, 
that neither blame or obstinacy were to be found all on one 
side — that of the working mass, — Mr. Mundella determined 
to bring about a better condition of affairs. After laboring 
for eleven weeks with his associate manufacturers, and in 
the Chamber of Commerce, he commenced his important 
experiment. The result thereof he has himself given in 
public speeches, lectures, and in evidence before Royal 
Commissioners appointed to inquire into its workings, 
and the workings of labor organizations generally. 

The service rendered by Mr. Mundella in this move- 
ment can hardly be appreciated by those, — and they con 
stitute a very large majority of American readers, — who 
have never investigated the conditions under which labor 
disputes arise. Heretofore our elbow-room has been so 
abundant that we have been insensible to the changed 



1 26 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

social conditions which have gradually concentrated wealth 
and business enterprises into fewer and fewer hands. Mr. 
Mundella, when visiting the United States in 1870-71, expres- 
sed to the writer his surprise at the general indifference, not to 
say ignorance, as to these changes, and the reasonable 
methods adopted elsewhere to bring them to peaceful set- 
tlement. During the past ten years, there have been four 
great strikes and lock-outs among the Pennsylvania coal 
miners, each of which involved from ten to thirty thousand 
working men with their families. In the town of Fall River, 
Mass., alone, there have been three such disasters within 
six years, involving from five to fifteen thousand operatives, 
with those dependent on them. 

In Great Britain, within the six years preceding Mr. Mun- 
della's organization of the first Board of Conciliation, there 
had been a number of great strikes — one at Preston, involv- 
ing 18,000 cotton-mill operatives. During the year in 
which the Nottingham Council was inaugurated, the Lon~ 
don building trades were on strike to the number of 10 to 
12,000. Several times during the years immediately pre- 
ceeding 1859, strikes and lock-outs occurred in the hosiery 
manufacture, taking out several thousand operatives each 
time. The loss of money in these struggles has not been, 
in the opinion of competent observers, so much to be 
deplored, as the increasing alienation of classes, and 
the fomenting of hostilities and antagonisms after each 
contest. In a country like England, small in area and 
thickly populated, with old institutions more or less hos- 
tile to the masses, this is a source of more dread than here ; 
but the experiences England offers are a warning not to be 
lightly regarded by other nations. 



ANTHONY JOHN MUNDELLA. I 27 

Mr. George Potter, editor of the London Beehive, 
writing of " Conciliation and Arbitration," says — 

" No man is better entitled to respectful, trustful, and 
even grateful attention on these matters than is Mr. Mun- 
della, Member for Sheffield, Manufacturer at Nottingham, 
and in his origin a working man. He, as all even cursori- 
ly informed on the subject are aware, is founder of the 
Nottingham Board of Arbitration for the hosiery trade. 
After an experience of seven years (186 1-8) from the date 
of its institution, it could be said of this Board that dis- 
putes between masters and men had been thereby prevent- 
ed. No remedy, he contends, is complete and perfect that 
does not provide for prospective action. With respect to 
conciliation, there is no room for misunderstanding that. 
What, he asks, is meant by arbitration ? It is an arrange- 
ment for open and friendly bargaining. Arbitration, how- 
ever, seems to be something more positive and absolute 
than this. It, first of all, implies an arbiter, one who goes 
to a place in the character of a seer, a hearer, a witness- 
The arbiter arbitrates when, between two parties, he pro- 
nounces sentence according to equity and the best of his 
judgment. But he must be authorized to treat the matter 
;in dispute according to his own will. The declaration of 
that will is an arbitration, and is final. Hence the mean- 
ing of authority beyond appeal attached to the epithet ar- 
bitrary. 

" Mr. Mundellais one of those who have no faith in ar- 
bitration by persons who know nothing of, and have no in- 
terest in, the particular trade with which the question sub- 
mitted may be connected. ' Arbitration,' he contends, ' to 
be effective in preventing disputes, must be the result of a 



128 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

system of open and friendly bargaining, in which masters 
and men meet together and talk over their common affairs 
openly and freely. Engineers cannot legislate for tailors, 
nor tailors for engineers ; each industry must legislate for 
itself.' " In this respect Mr. Mundella's view differs from 
that of others who contend for general boards. Mr. Pot- 
ter then continues to paraphrase and quote Mr. Mundella's 
testimony, before a Royal Commission of Inquiry, as fol- 
lows : " From 1820 to i860," he observes, ' offences 
against person and property diminished ; but combinations 
were better organized, and strikes increased.' But let this 
sentence be connected with that in which he bears witness 
that ' the leaders ,of trades' unions have been among the 
most energetic advocates of Courts of Arbitration and 
Conciliation.' # # # 

"In i860, some at least of the Nottingham masters be- 
came weary of contention, and were persuaded that lock- 
outs were not a remedy for strikes. After a century of feud, 
they desired an era of conciliation. First communicating 
with their brother masters, they brought them into the 
same mind. A resolution was passed, and a handbill issued. 
In fact the masters invited the men to meet them with 
a view to some arrangement. The invitation was accepted, 
and, at the end of three days' discussion, the existing 
strike came to a close by mutual concession. But this was 
not all. It was further agreed that, to prevent strikes for 
the future, 'strikes so disastrous to employers and em- 
ployed,' a Board of Arbitration should be at once formed. 
It was to consist of six masters and six workmen. To it 
all questions relating to wages were to be referred, and its 
decisions were to be final and binding upon all parties. No 



ANTHONY JOHN MUNDELLA. I 29 

sooner said than done ; only, by mutual agreement, nine 
from each side were substituted for six. The nine work- 
men were chosen by the universal suffrage of their own 
trades' unions ; the nine masters, at a general meeting of 
their own body. 

"The Board met on the 3d of December, i860. They 
had neither rules or precedents. The scheme was not 
universally approved by either masters or men. Some dis- 
trusted it even to suspicion ; others assailed it with ridicule 
and sneers ; a third portion (of the masters) doubted the 
practicability, if they did not disdain the thought, of mas- 
ters meeting men on terms of perfect equality. However, 
the experimenters had with them a majority of the mas- 
ters, and perhaps the bulk of the intelligent men. The 
result shall be stated as nearly as may be in the founders 
own words. 'Whenever men meet together with the 
honest desire to aim at the truth, and to do justice to each 
other, a good understanding is almost sure to follow.' 
The working-men delegates proposed a master as presi- 
dent; the masters, a workman as vice president — prece- 
dents which have been invariably followed. The rules 
originally made have never been altered. Brief and sim- 
ple, they provide for arbitration on any questions relating 
to wages, and for conciliation in any dispute that may 
arise ; and they intrust to a committee of four members 
(two, it is assumed, on each side) inquiry into cases re- 
ferred to it, with instructions to settle the disputes, or, if 
unable, to remit them to the whole Board. This, there- 
fore, is, after all, an example of ' settling their disputes 
among themselves.' Not only is no stranger called in, but 
no umpire, no chairman even, is appointed beyond the 
6* 9 



I3O BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

members of the Board, who, as has been seen, choose their 
own president and vice-president from among themselves. 
Experience^ however, has convinced Mr. Mundella and 
the Board, that it impairs the influence of the individual 
and of the Board when, as has happened to himself, the 
president gives a casting vote. ' I consider it undesirable/ 
he observes, ' that one side should even appear to have 
the least preponderance over the other ; and the employ- 
ers intend, at the annual meeting, to propose the abolition 
of that privilege, and to substitute for it, after the exam- 
ple of Leicester, the vote of some gentleman acquainted, 
but not connected, with the trade, in whose honor and 
justice both parties shall have full confidence.' 

" Mr. Mundella does not pretend that there have been 
no difficulties, no mistakes • but he distinctly states that 
every question submitted for seven years has been success- 
fully adjusted. ' We have had instances,' he admits, ' where 
employers have acted contrary to the decisions of the 
Board, and two where workmen have refused to accept 
those decisions ; but the steady adherence of the majority 
of both parties to our decrees has always, sooner or later, 
brought the recalcitrants (the kickers, in fact) back to our 
side.' The Nottingham Board now governs the hosiery 
trade of Nottingham, Derbyshire, and North Leicester- 
shire ; and the number of persons employed cannot be 
less than sixty thousand. It is very rarely that the price 
originally proposed by either masters or workmen is the 
price ultimately agreed to. Some alterations or conces- 
sions are generally made on both sides ; and the price 
once fixed, is considered mutually binding. But a month's 
notice must be given before any change of prices can be 



ANTHONY JOHN MUNDELLA. 131 

discussed. Most questions are settled in committee. The 
two seceders from the Board were re-admitted at their own 
request. For three years and a-half (the latter portion of 
the seven) the Board have arrived at all their decisions 
without voting. The Board is open to receive delegations 
from out-of-doors, a practice which has had a veiy whole- 
some effect j the general result being, that, by coming into 
friendly contact with each other, mutual confidence takes 
place of former mistrust, and the full force of facts and 
arguments on one side comes to be acknowledged on the 
other. 

' In fact,' says Mr. Mundella, ' the less the workman is kept in 
the dark, the better it is both for himself and his master. On the 
other hand, the insight which the master obtains into the circumstances 
and views of the workman, tends greatly to develop his sympathies 
and to improve the workman's condition. And we feel that labor de- 
mands more consideration at our hands than iron, or coal, or cotton 
or any dead commodity.' 

" Who, then, are the workmen that have seats at a 
Board which are producing all these beneficial effects ? 
' In almost all cases,' answers Mr. Mundella, ' they are 
prominent leaders of trades' unions ; ' and, he adds, ' I 
have found among them as much wisdom, tact, modera- 
tion, and self-denial as the best of us who are employers 
can show.' We now learn what, according to Nottingham 
experience, has been the effect of conciliation and arbi- 
tration in relation both to unionism and conflicts between 
capital and labor. 

"Since the 27th of September, i860," says Mr. Mundella, "there 
has not been a bill of any kind issued. Strikes are at an end also. 
Levies to sustain them are unknown ; and one shilling a year from 
each member suffices to pay all expenses. This, not a farthing of 
which comes out of the pockets of their masters, is equivalent to a 



I32 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

large advance of wages. I have inspected the balance-sheet of a 
trades' union of ten thousand three hundred men, and I found the ex- 
penditure for thirteen months to amount to less than a hundred 
pounds " * 

But the member for Sheffield has not contented him- 
self with the special work of organizing Conciliation in 
the business with which he is connected. He has for ten 
years past been active in promulgating the ideas which 
animate that movement, and in the advocacy of co-ope- 
ration and industrial partnerships, as remedies for the 
present dependence of labor on wages alone, a dependence 
which he clearly sees to be the principal cause of the aggres- 
sive uneasiness that exists everywhere where organized in- 
dustries are in operation. Mr. Mundella expresses clearly 
the opinion that the wages system is an inequitable method 
of distributing results or profits to labor. Nor has he 
hesitated to boldly sustain the right of organization and to 
defend trades' unions, in or out of Parliament, when he 
deemed them unjustly assailed. It was in consequence of 
these views, that he received the nomination and election for 
the Borough of Sheffield in 1868. At that time England 
was greatly agitated over the the shocking developments 
made in regard to " rattening," and other outrages, prac- 
ticed by the cutlery and grinding trades, whose business 
is practically centered in Sheffield. Charles Reade's Novel 
of " Put Yourself in His Place," has presented these dis- 
closures with pre-raphaelite fidelity, but whether designed 
or not, the effect of a perusal by those unfamiliar with the 
facts, is to make it appear that the English trades' unions, 

* " Conciliation and Arbitration." Contemporary Revzezv, Novem- 
ber, 1870, page 551-3. 



ANTHONY JOHN MUNDELLA. I 33 

as such, were not only responsible for the Sheffield out- 
rages, but that similar ones were the common practice 
among them. It was demonstrated conclusively that the 
offending trades were small bodies making their own policy, 
and refusing to act with the larger ones and federated 
movements that have marked later years. Mr. Mundella 
with other prominent friends of labor, denounced the view 
alluded to, and which Mr. Reade has presented with great 
art in his novel. A Royal Commission was in session in 
1868, by request of the leading Trades' Agitators. Mr. 
Roebuck, who had for many years represented Sheffield, 
was a member of it. He gave great offence by his treat- 
ment of the Union leaders, some of whom were generally 
present at the sessions of the Commission. Among these 
was a witty Irishman named Connelly, a stone-mason by 
trade. This man speaking at a public meeting, called by 
himself and others to denounce the Sheffield atrocities, 
wittily and pungently asked " but what can ye expect of a 
Borough that sends Mr. Roebuck to Parliament ? " " The 
Times " and other papers commented annoyingly on " Dog 
Tear 'em," as Mr. Roebuck has been long nicknamed from 
his satirical temper and speech, and that gentleman, when 
Mr. Connelly next appeared in the Commission-room, 
asked that he should not be allowed to attend the session. 
He carried his point and as a result lost his seat in the 
House of Commons. " Tom " Connelly and his friends 
canvassed Sheffield thoroughly, and Mr. Mundella went to 
the head of the poll. Mr. Roebuck, however, was re- 
turned at the next election, with Mr. Mundella as a col- 
league, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain of Birmingham, who 
was brought forward, having been returned lowest, though 



134 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

his vote was a large one. The author of " Men and Man- 
ners in Parliament" under the head of "The Indepen- 
dent Member," describes one of the most notable men in 
English politics in the following happy manner : 

" Sitting in the corner seat of the front bench below 
the gangway on the opposition side is a man so old and 
feeble looking that the stranger wonders what he does 
here. His white hair falls about a beardless face which 
is comparatively fresh looking, though the eyes lack lustre 
and the mouth is drawn in. When he rises to speak he 
bends his short stature over a supporting stick, and as he 
walks down to the table to hand in the perpetual 
notice of motion or of question, he drags across the floor 
leaden feet in a painful way that sometimes suggests to 
well-meaning members the proffer of an arm, or of a ser- 
vice to accomplish the errand — advances which are curtly 
repelled, for this is Mr. Roebuck: the ' Dog Tear'em ' of 
old, toothless now, and dim of sight, but still high in spirit, 
and ready to fight with, or to snarl and snap at, the un- 
wary passer-by. # # # # * * # 
Mr. Roebuck is a good lover and a good hater, chiefly 
the latter. A Parliamentary Ishmael, his hand has been 
against every one and every one's hand against him. Lord 
Palmerston, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Bright, Mr. Cobden — in 
brief, every man of any prominence in the House of Com- 
mons during the past quarter of a century, has at one time 
or another felt the fangs of ' Tear'em ' # * # In 
argument his style is clear and incisive, and he is a master 
of good, simple English, which he marshals in short, crisp 
sentences. His voice, now so low that it scarcely reaches 
the Speaker's chair, was once full and clear. As in his 



ANTHONY JOHN MUNDELLA. 1 35 

best days he never attempted to raise to anything approach- 
ing florid eloquence, so he rarely varied in gesture from a 
regularly recurring darting of the index finger at the hon. 
member whom he chanced to be attacking — an angry, dic- 
tatorial gesture, which Mr. Disraeli, after smarting under 
it for an hour, once said reminded him of ' the tyrant of a 
twopenny theatre.' Now when Mr. Roebuck speaks his 
hands are quietly folded before him, and only at rare in- 
tervals does the right hand go forth with pointed finger to 
trace on the memories of the old men of the House recol- 
lections of fierce fights in which some partook who now 
live only as names in history." 

His repeated re-elections for Sheffield are an evidence 
of the fact that a popular constituency may be led by a 
bitter tongue and a caustic wit quite as readily as they 
may be by energetic service and fidelity to principles and 
policies. 

The witty writer from whom the foregoing is quoted, 
pays his respects to the other member for Sheffield, in 
commenting upon the latter as a parliamentary speaker : 

" Mr. Mundella fortunately has not been discomposed 
by finding himself vis-a-vis a strong Minister. He is ready 
as ever to proffer advice in critical moments, and to be- 
stow upon the House of Commons the value of the ex- 
perience gained by him during his memorable" fortnight's 
visit to Germany and Switzerland. No one can say — ■ 
probably because no one dare venture to sit down before 
the problem — how we managed to get on at all before 
Mr. Mundella went that journey. But if since his return 
matters have not mended, it is not for lack of counsel on 
the part of the hon. member for Sheffield. Mr. Mundella 



I $6 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

never makes a short speech, and neither his manner nor 
his matter, renders a long one endurable. It is a curious 
contradiction of nature that a professed humanitarian who 
has made such great efforts in the direction of shortening 
the hours of labor in factories should himself unrelent- 
ingly talk to the hapless House of Commons for two hours 
and a half at a stretch. It does not seem fitting that, in this 
respect, there should continue to be one law for the factory 
owner and another for the lion, member for Sheffield." 

" Regarded," says this writer, "from any point of view, 
the House of Commons has not its equal anywhere as a 
legislative assembly. Its composition is the most harmoni- 
ously diverse, its sense of honor is the highest, its percep- 
tion of humor is the keenest, its business capacity is the 
largest, its collective wisdom approaches the nearest to 
perfection, its purity is the most stainless, its appreciation 
of native talent is the quickest and most generous, and its 
instinct is the truest of any of its compeers throughout the 
kingdoms of the earth. It is the one British Institution 
which no Briton need fear to vaunt, because foreigners are 
foremost in their praise of it and are united in their at- 
tempts at imitation. Next to "being the Lord Mayor him- 
self, to be a member of Parliament is, as Mr. Mundella can 
testify, the surest passport to distinction for mediocrity 
travelling on the Continent, and the simple letters " M.P." 
on the bearer's card, even though the bearer be Mr. 
Mitchell Henry, are an open sesame to all the choicest 
treasure-houses that lie between the Ural Mountains and 
the Bay of Biscay." # 

* " Men and Manner in Parliament,' pp. 269, 270. 



ANTHONY JOHN MUNDELLA. 1 37 

But this solemn " chaff," which is so characteristic a 
feature of English wit, must not blind us to the earnest- 
ness and comprehensiveness of Mr. Mundella's work, — 
especially marked in the direction of securing national 
education, as well as in removing all special legislation 
from the statute book which deals with labor offences in a 
spirit different from that with which other acts or offences 
are treated by English law. Mr. Mundella's firm employs 
several thousand Saxon operatives, and he is in the habit 
of making frequent visits to the continent. The reference 
made by the critic is to a special journey, taken, — as 
was the one in company with Mr. T. Hughes to the 
United States, — principally for the purpose of examining 
educational systems. His time was utilized to the greatest 
advantage, as those who met him in the United States can 
understand. At Washington he made a rapid survey of 
the Departments, and was especially interested in the 
Bureau of Education and its work. At the request of the 
Commissioner, Hon. John Eaton, he made some interest- 
ing statements, giving his views as to the value of edu- 
cated labor over uneducated, — the Bureau being at that 
time engaged in making investigations relating thereto. # 

His speech at the Cooper Institute, to a large meeting 
of workingmen, was heartily received. On these questions 
Mr. Mundella may be regarded as an authority and the lec- 
tures he has delivered on the subject of technical and 
general education are considered as valuable contribu- 
tions to the discussion. He has taken an active part in 
the several debates on the Education Bills of 1870 and 

* Circular of Information by the Bureau of Education, April, 1872. 



I38 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

1872, and the propositions since made for the repeal of the 
objectionable twenty-fifth, or rate-paying section. Mr. 
Mundella is an active member of the " National Education 
League, " and serves on its Executive Committee. Favor- 
ing compulsory education, he was a member of a depu- 
tation from the League, which waited in 1870, on Mr. 
Gladstone. In urging their policy, he said that " without 
compulsion, nothing like a good education is secured. 
However much you may cover the land with schools ; how- 
ever ample the provision may be that you make for those 
schools, as in America, as in France indeed, and as in 
Holland, the results will be altogether inadequate to your 
efforts unless you make it the absolute duty of the parent 
that the child shall be in attendance, regularly and con- 
secutively, for a certain number of years. My attention 
was first drawn to this by reason of the fact that I am an 
employer of labor abroad, that I have seen the working of 
this system in Switzerland and in Germany ; and I have seen 
its contrast, too, in Holland and in France. I am conscious 
also," he adds, " of what is going on 111 America, and I am 
bound to say that although America has made the most 
ample provision of any country in the world for schools, 
yet American education, instead of progressing, is on the 
decline." He urged that the English ideal must be a high 
one ; that there must be a comparison made with Germany 
and Switzerland, nations which have had a compulsory 
system for over thirty years, and in which he declared 
that he could not find an ignorant child, go where he might. 
He adds that — " It is not only that they are not ignorant, 
or that, like our own children, they have attained to the read- 
ing of a signboard, or the scrawling of a name,— that is 



ANTHONY JOHN MUNDELLA. I 39 

not the education which they have enjoyed ; but it is 
an education that is useful to them in its culture and in 
its assistance in acquiring knowledge in every relation 
of life." * 

A biographical sketch says that — " Mr. Mundella's work 
in Parliament has been prominently in labor, education, and 
social questions. On entering Parliament he seconded the 
address. His speech on the second reading of the Educa- 
tion Bill was pronounced by Mr. Gladstone as pre-eminently 
the best in the debate. 

" His knowledge of the education question has been ac- 
quired under favorable circumstances. Fifteen years ago 
a Nottingham house established a branch manufacturing 
business in Saxony. This soon after came to the hands of 
Mr. Mundella's firm, and he has in consequence mastered 
the German, Swiss, and American systems of education. In 
1869 he, jointly with Mr. T. Hughes, introduced a Trades' 
Union Bill, which, if passed, would have put an end to the 
legislative strife on the question. He succeeded in ob- 
taining temporary protection for trades' union funds till the 
following year. He combattedthe objectionable clauses in 
the Criminal Law Amendment Act, and has worked 
earnestly for its repeal. He moved for and obtained the 
appointment of a Truck Commission. In 187 1 he brought 
in the Brickyards' Bill, which he succeeded in incorpora- 
ting with a Government Bill, enforcing the Workshops Act. 
In 1872 he carried the Arbitration (Master's and Work- 
man's) Bill, obtained the appointment of a Factories Com- 

* Pamphlet Report, by National Education -League, Manchester, 
March 9th, 1870. 



140 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

missioner in 1872, and introduced the Factories Nine 
Hours' Bill, in 187 1. 

" Mr. Mundella has a great capacity for work, and can 
and does perform the labors of two or three ordinary M.P's. 
His services on behalf of education before he entered 
Parliament deserve special mention ; and the method of 
arbitration which the working classes of England have 
already assented to, and to-day are willing to substitute for 
the expedient of strikes and lock-outs, owes its origin and 
success to him. His career in Parliament has been most 
successful. Being returned for Sheffield in 1868, he at 
once came to the front in the cause of labor and wori for 
himself a position amongst workingmen which will not 
soon be forgotten. The Session of 1874 saw Mr. Mun- 
clella's efforts in Parliament on behalf of the " Factory Nine 
Hours' Bill " crowned with success. On May 6, in a full 
House, he moved the second reading of his Bill; after 
which the Home Secretary announced the intention of 
the Government to deal with the matter, and pass a Bill em- 
bodying Mr. Mundella's wishes ; to this he consented, and 
ultimately a Bill was passed, which will come into opera- 
tion on the 1st of January, 1875, limiting the hours of work in 
factories to fifty-six a week, and preventing any child's being 
employed under ten years of age." # 

This is the measure opposed so energetically by Prof. 
Fawcett. The member for Sheffield, in reply to the charge 
that the reduction was not desired by those whom it 
would affect, declared that 74 per cent, of all the mill 

* Beehive " Portrait Gallery," No. 11, London, 1874. 



ANTHONY JOHN MUNDELLA. 141 

operatives were women and children, and not ten per cent, 
were even negative in their support of the bill. 

Mr. Mundella has heartily supported Mr. Plimsoll, in 
his efforts for legislation to secure protection to seamen ; 
sustained Mr. Trevelyan's bill to extend the country fran- 
chise to the farm laborers ; and voted with Sir Charles Dilke 
in favor of redistribution of seats. On the vote to pay the 
Prince of Wales's India expenses, he was with the majority, 
and rather strongly protested against Mr. Macdonald's 
assuming to be a special representative of the working 
class. His defence of the grant is very characteristic of the 
feeling with which the expenses of the crown are gener- 
ally regarded by English Liberals. The member for 
Sheffield said. " As long as we had a Monarchy he should 
be ashamed to have a cotton velvet or tinfoil sort of 
Monarchy ; he did not believe in a cheap, shabby, Brum- 
magem Monarchy ; and he always would give his vote loyally, 
and in consistency with those opinions which he believed 
to be the opinions of his constituents." 



IX. 

Alexander Macdonald. 



HE " Working-man's Member " is no longer a myth 
or a terror in English politics. As Mr. Fawcett most 
admirably stated, in alluding to a sneer from the 
conservative benches over Dr. Kenealy's election to the 
House of Commons, the quickest way to make a demagogue 
innocuous or to prove that a class fear is without foundation, 
is to bring either into Parliament. The appearance in " the 
House " of the representative " working man " has made no 
excitement, but has practically added to the legislative capa- 
city of that body. The next election will, without doubt, see 
several other labor leaders chosen, and in the mean while 
the two gentlemen who have secured seats, Alexander. 
Macdonald and Thomas Burt, both men who have credi- 
tably followed the occupation of mining coal, are not only 
winning recognition for those who are to come on the 
same basis, but respect and place for themselves in that 
legislative assembly which is regarded as one of the most 
difficult places in which to secure either. 



ALEXANDER MACDONALD. 1 43 

Alexander Macdonald was born at Dalmacoulter, in 
the parish of New Monkland, near the town of Airdrie, ten 
miles east of Glasgow. He is now about fifty years of age, 
the eldest of seven brothers, four of whom are citizens 
of the United States. One of them acquired some dis- 
tinction as an officer of Union volunteers during the war 
of the Rebellion. Mr. Macdonald's family is a branch 
from that powerful clan of that name, which was all 
but exterminated at Culloden Moor, fighting in behalf 
of the Jacobite cause. His grandfather, then a lad, fled 
to the lowlands, where for a time he was quite fortunate. 
The elder Macdonald was bound apprentice to the sea, and 
took an active part in the French war, being engaged at the 
capturing of several of the West India Islands ; and later, 
was taken prisoner during the war of 18 12, by an Ameri- 
can privateer. After his release and return to Scotland, 
he married and pursued the occupation of a miner. His 
eldest son, now Member of Parliament for Stafford, began 
his working life in the same laborious occupation at the 
age of eight years. The condition of the mining popula- 
tion in Scotland at the time has been most vigorously por- 
trayed by Mr. Macdonald himself, in various writings and 
speeches. One of the latter was delivered at the last 
Agricultural Laborers Congress, held at Birmingham dur- 
ing the summer of 1875, and the miners' representative 
thus described his early life, its associations, disabilities, 
and the struggle to remove them from the class with which 
he is identified. 

" The occupation to which I belong and from which I 
sprang — for I entered the mine when I was only eight 
years of age — was perhaps one of the lowest in condition 



144 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

at the time. It was at the close of the 18th century that 
the miner in Scotland obtained his freedom, for you will 
observe that previous to that time he was bought and sold 
with the soil. It is stated in the old chronicles of our 
country that blood-hounds were kept to trace miners who 
had run away, and to bring them back again. It was ruled 
by statute law that miners were obliged to work nearly all 
days in a year, and if they did not work, or if they com- 
mitted any offence, they were to be whipped on their 
bodies for the glory of God — that I cannot understand — 
and for the good of their masters. In 1775 a law was 
passed to try and remove that state of things, but the law 
was ineffectual, for the strong grasp of the land-owner and 
the mine-owner (but chiefly then the land-owners, because 
they held the minerals) was too powerful, and it was only 
in 1799 that an effective law was passed to give -the work- 
ing miner of Scotland freedom." # * # When he be- 
gan to labor, Mr. Macdonald said, " children worked in 
the mines, male and female, father and mothers, all together. 
Before the year 1825, our men had to resort to secret 
combinations. # # * * How were these carried on ? 
No man was entrusted with a knowledge of their docu- 
ments, and, as my information goes,- they were burned 
secretly. The men then were working unlimited hours, 
and a child might have been introduced to the mine at 
the age of one, if the employer thought he could be of 
use, and the recklessness of the parent would permit. 
# * # How were the children expelled from the mines ? 
How was it that a law was passed saying that no child must 
enter the mine before it was 12 years of age? Was it 
through the operation of the law of supply and demand ? 



ALEXANDER MACDONALD. I 45 

* # # # Was it the mine-owners ? Was it the manu- 
facturers ? No, the men determined themselves that the 
degrading position of their daughters, their wives, and 
the future mothers, should not continue. They went time 
after time to the legislature. I may say that the wages 
were not paid for three months together. * * * Why ? 
The employers fed them, they housed them, they had a 
paternal regard for them, which was so very strong that 
they supplied them with food in order that they might 
spend no money save in the truck-shops or ' tommy-shops/ 
I ask you who released these men from that position ? 

# * # It was the men themselves that did it. They went 
to Parliament. * * # The men agitated. First the 
law of truck was struck at, and next we attacked the badly 
ventilated mines. Year after year we went to Parliament, 
and we worked, step by step, until now. I venture to say 
that our position, as a class, so far as our boys are con- 
cerned, is the first of any body of laborers in the civilized 
world." 

The early years of the member for Stafford were filled 
with severe toil, and arduous efforts to obtain an education. 
His mother watched and worked for every opportunity to 
send him to school. He attended in the evenings for 
several years, during which the working day was fifteen 
hours long. The effect of these exertions decided the 
work of his life. He was a leader of his class before he 
was of age, taking in 1842, an active part in a great strike, 
and having some time before been prominent in the agitation 
by which Parliament, chiefly through the efforts of the Earl 
of Shaftesbury (then Lord Ashley) was induced to pass an 
7 10 



I46 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

act forbidding the employment of women in the mines. The 
same act forbade the working of boys under thirteen, and 
abolished the compulsory apprenticeship of pauper children 
to this employment. Mr. Macdonald was also prominent, 
at this time, in the first formidable agitation for eight hours 
as a legal day's work. At the close of 1842, he determined 
to fit himself for the University and then to enter and pur- 
sue one of the learned professions. Six years after, in 
1848, he enrolled himself a student at the University of 
Glasgow, and pursued his studies during the session of 
that and the following year, working at mining during the 
summer, and thereby maintaining himself and helping his 
mother and brothers. He continued active in support of 
his fellow-miners' movements. In 1850, and for several 
years thereafter, Mr. Macdonald taught school, and so 
continued until a wide-spread agitation for the abolition of 
the truck system, and a batch of kindred abuses and 
oppressions, recalled him to class leadership, and ended, 
for the time being, in the passage of a better mining act. 
Two other acts, chiefly relating to the protection of life in 
the mines, were passed in i860 and 1862, mainly through 
the persistent agitation of Mr. Macdonald. Before this, 
he had come to be regarded, not only as the foremost 
leader of the miners, but as a trustworthy authority on 
all matters relating to the working, ventilation, etc., of the 
mines and the protection of those who were employed in 
them. 

To the exertions and forecast of " the miners' mem- 
ber," as Mr. Macdonald is termed, is largely due the or- 
ganization, not only of the Miners' Union in Scotland, but 
of their National Union, of which he has been the Presi- 



ALEXANDER MACDONALD. 1 47 

dent since its formation. A conference looking to that 
end was held at Ashton-under-Lyme, in 1857. In 1863 
another conference was convened, and the National Union 
formed. At the present time this body is a federation of 
twenty-three distinct societies and represents a member- 
ship of 137,956 miners. Its funds were reported in 1874 
to be ,£157,861. The objects are stated to be the follow- 
ing :— 

Better legislation for the management of mines ; to 
protect the miners' lives, promote their health and improve 
their condition generally ; to obtain compensation where 
employers are liable for accidents ; to assist branches and 
members when either is unjustly dealt with ; to aid them 
against all lock outs • to encourage the raising of local 
funds for the aid of permanently disabled miners, and to 
give a weekly allowance to disabled or aged members 
unfit to work. 

Conferences are held every six months, or twelve 
months. The Northumberland Society, of which Thomas 
Burt, member for Morpeth, is secretary, belong to the 
federation and numbers 18,000 members, with a fund of 
£2 2, 5 06. That of Durham has 40,000. The West York- 
shire district has 12,000 members, and the others from 
6000 down to 600. Not over one half the Miner's Unions 
are represented in the National Organization, but the pro- 
babilities of a complete federation are growing. One con- 
sequence of this formidable propaganda, is the creation of 
" Joint Committees " in the more important mine districts. 
These bodies are given certain legislative functions in re- 
gard to the local arrangement of mines, etc., and consist 
of six miners and six mining engineers. The voting power 



I48 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

is equal, but it is seldom that their deliberations fail of 
satisfactory result." 

Another feature of the movements of which Mr. Mac- 
donald is a leader, is the quite general acceptance of the 
plan of arbitration. In the North of England coal districts 
there arc regular boards, now fully established and working 
effectively, through which agency labor disputes are in gen- 
eral amicably arranged. The board or court usually con- 
sists of an equal number of workmen and employers, with 
some person selected by both to preside. So far has this 
plan been carried, that in common with the more import- 
ant iron mining and working districts, power is given these 
boards by both parties to fix, at stated periods, the rates 
of wages, and to make other necessary regulations. 
Through these causes there may be found in the min- 
ing, iron-working, and manufacturing districts, among the 
working operatives, men whose knowledge of the mar- 
kets, their ruling rates, etc., is in every way accurate and 
extensive. Men like Mr. Macdonald, Mr. Burt, Mr. 
Halliday, and others who are recognized as labor lead- 
ers, have been trained in a thoroughly practical school, 
and have become experts and specialists of a high order 
of merit. 

The President of the National Miners' Union has 
always been a strenuous advocate of arbitration, as well as 
other means of education and conciliation which will help 
in bringing to an end the quarrels between Labor and 
Capital. In a speech made during 1875, he argued 
that— 

"Employers and employed are engaged in a joint 
enterprise : that joint enterprise results in sending a certain 



ALEXANDER MACDONALD. 1 49 

commodity to market which the public buy, and they receive 
in return — both employers and workmen — a certain 
amount of money. That amount is to be divided between 
the owners of the collieries and the workmen ; and I con- 
tend that when the division has to be readjusted, the 
workmen have a perfect right to know how the readjust- 
ment is to take place, and the employers have not a right 
to make this reduction in an arbitrary manner. If the 
workmen resent the reduction, then," said Mr. Macdonald, 
" the employers in the public interest are bound to submit 
the matter to arbitration. I don't want to destroy any- 
thing," he said ; " I want to bring about that which will 
give peace and security ; I want to effect that which will 
give working men and employers contentment in the future, 
enabling them to settle peacefully and fairly whatever dis- 
putes may arise, instead of by the old brutal method of 
strikes and lock-outs." 

The following resolution was reported by the speaker 
and passed with others of a similar character : — 

"This Conference strongly recommends the establishment of 
Boards of Arbitration and Conciliation, supported by sound organiza- 
tion, together with co-operative collieries, as the best means of ar- 
riving at the true interest of capital and labor, invested in the mines 
of the nation, as this Conference is of opinion that until this be ac- 
complished, strikes and lock-outs will occur, and the rights of the 
workmen be entirely ignored by a large number of employers." 

Mr. Macdonald, while closely attending to the public 
and parliamentary interests of his laboring clients, finds 
time to take active interest in the political reforms in pro- 
gress. He early advocated the participation of the Trades' 
Unions, as such, in political demonstrations. Some of his 



I50 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

strongest speeches have been made at their meetings. He 
was a candidate for the House in 1868, canvassing the Scotch 
borough of Kilmarnock. It is claimed that . in order to 
prevent his election, employers quite generally began to 
discharge such of their workmen as supported him. In 
order to prevent the personal suffering consequent on this, 
Mr. Macdonald withdrew from the canvass. Since then he 
has twice visited the United States, travelling extensively 
therein. 

At the Nottingham Trades' Union Congress in 1872, 
and at subsequent annual meetings of that body, he was 
elected chairman of its parliamentary committee. At 
the last general election "he was elected to the House 
of Commons from the Borough of Stafford, standing at the 
head of the poll. In Parliament he at once found a 
prominent place, representing, as he practically does, so 
much larger a constituency than the one that elected him. 
At the last Trades' Congress, held in Liverpool, January 
16, 1874, he was among the most prominent members.^ 



* It may be well to state the representative character of the British 
Trades' Union Congress. At the Liverpool sessions there were pre- 
sent 2S0 delegates, representing over 100 Unions, and representing a 
membership of nearly 700,000, several Unions and Trades' Councils, 
numbering from 20,000 to 140,000. Among those in attendance, be- 
sides Mr. Macdonald, M.P., were Mr. Burt and Mr. Plimsoll, M.P.'s. 
Mr. Henry Crompton, a well-known Positivist, Lloyd Jones, Joseph 
Arch, George Ogden, and others. The objects for discussion therein 
and agitation during the ensuing year, were stated to be, — The repeal 
of the several enactments which removed Trades' combinations and 
the matter of contract between a wages-laborer and an employer, out 
of the general law, and provided specially for the class affected. This 
has since been accomplished. Also, consideration by Parliament of what 



ALEXANDER MACDOX ALD. I 5 I 

As a member of the House of Commons, Mr. Macdon- 
ald, like his fellow-member, Mr. Burt, the member from 
Morpeth, formerly a working miner, has declared that 
he does not consider himself bound to represent work- 
ing-class interests only. He has taken quite an active 
part in debates on education, taxation, church, and other 
matters, serving on the Trades' Inquiry Commission, be- 
sides being a hard worker on the Coal Trade and other 
Committees, and in attendance with frequent delegations 
on Ministers. The witty writer, who under the name of 
" The member for the Chiltern Hundreds," has described 
the House of Commons, does not appear to like the mem- 
ber for Stafford, and thus gently satirizes him over the com- 
pliment he pays to Mr. Burt : " Mr. Burt has, he himself 
proclaims, w T orked as a miner in Choppington Colliery. 
He looks like what he is, and speaks with the most re- 
markable accent ever heard within the walls of the House 
of Commons. But he bears himself modestly, shows a 
perfect command of the subject he discusses, and is short 

limit should be placed upon the summary jurisdiction of magistrates, 
which deprives citizens of the right of trial by jury, and an inquiry by 
a royal commission as to the whole subject of the unpaid magistracy 
and their powers. Reduction of the qualification of jurymen, to 
admit workmen to discharge the civic duties of jurymen, and payment 
for the duties so discharged ; alteration of the law so that workmen or 
their families may be able to sue employers in the event of injury or 
death from accidents due to negligence ; a workshops regulation bill 
for women and children, and the extension of the Factory Act to 
bleaching and dyeing works ; an act to prevent truck, by making com- 
pulsory weekly payments to workmen in the current coin of the realm ; 
and last, an act for the better protection of seamen's lives by prevent- 
ing the sending of ill-found and unseaworthy vessels to sea, 



152 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

and pithy in his treatment of it * . * ' * No one can 
complain that Mr. Macdonald, the second professional 
' workingman's candidate,' is tiresome in his reminders 
of his earlier status. He is secretary of the Miners' As- 
sociation for Scotland and president of the Miners' Na- 
tional Association, if you please ; but not a working man. 
# # # Mr. Burt is lost in the obscurity of the seats 
usually filled by the rank and file of Irish members. But 
no position less prominent than the front seat below the 
gangway, and no companionship less distinguished than 
that of Mr. Fawcett, Sir Charles Dilke, Lord Edmund Fitz- 
maurice, and Mr. Roebuck will suit Mr. Macdonald; and 
as he stands fully a pace forward on the floor of the House, 
with right hand on hip, buff-coloured waistcoat fully dis- 
played, and a respectable-looking slip of paper lightly held 
in his left hand, one might, without incurring just rebuke 
for the error, take him for a prosperous pastrycook or even 
a luxurious linendraper. His discourse, too, would foster 
the illusion, having in it no more of the pith and marrow of 
Mr. Burt's simple speech than his voice has of the North- 
umbrian miner's deep burr, or his manner of that winning- 
ness which is born not so much from the sort of feeling 
that animated the rhetorical yeoman, 

* Too proud to care from whence he came,' 

as from the unconsciously expressed conviction that after 
all the thing is not what the father was or what the youth 
may have been, but what the man is." * 

Mr. Macdonald is a man just above the medium 



*"Men and Manner in Parliament," pp. 197-9- 



ALEXANDER MACDONALD. I 53 

height, broad shouldered, full chested and compactly 
built. He has strongly marked features, with high 
cheek bones, prominent nose, and somewhat heavy 
lower jaw, manifesting both strength of will and 
combativeness. He dresses with scrupulous neatness, 
usually wearing his broad-cloth coat buttoned over the 
breast. Mr. Burt on the other hand is a younger man, of 
rather slender but sinewy figure, while his features are re- 
fined and delicate in mould, and he impresses a stranger 
as one whose constitution, naturally none too robust, has 
been impaired by the hard labor he has endured. The 
impression given is decidedly favorable. One who saw both 
gentlemen at the Liverpool Trades' Congress says in an 
unpublished letter, that "Mr. Macdonald affected somewhat 
in dress and attitude the member of Parliament, while Mr. 
Burt moved about with a simplicity and ease that was 
noticeable. When speaking he appears to be completely 
absorbed in his subject, so that his entire forgetfulness of 
self and indifference to rhetorical effect suffices in a short 
time to make the hearer forget the Northumbrian dialect, 
which is very pronounced. His powers of expression are 
very superior, his language simple, concise and well chosen, 
and his style not at all declamatory. His sense of the 
ludicrous is marked and what he says is often enlivened 
by quret humor." Of the member for Stafford, Mr. Mac- 
donald, it is said by the same writer that " in his speeches in 
the body in question he identified himself thoroughly, and 
apparently with the utmost sincerity, with the cause he 
champions, while he manifested a decidedly independent 
spirit in the expression of his own opinions on questions 
upon which the Congress was divided in sentiment. He 

7* 



154 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

impresses one as a man who would make a bold stand in 
the face of. an adverse majority, though his combative 
vehemence and earnestness would doubtless turn the scale 
in his favor in many cases and enable him to carry the 
majority of a popular audience with him. He speaks 
with fluency and vigor, but is a little too prone to declama- 
tion, and his language sometimes lacks the accuracy and 
polish incident to thorough scholarship and rhetorical train- 
ing. Despite a faint trace of- self-consciousness, or at least, 
the appearance of it, he produces on the whole the impres- 
sion of a strong and earnest character, and seems well 
calculated to wield a large and commanding influence over 
the minds of the class with which his life has been so close- 
ly identified." 

Mr. Macdonald does not seem to have the faculty of 
winning the approval of his opponents — a circumstance 
which does not detract from the esteem of his supporters 
and may doubtless be regarded as a proof of the sincerity 
and courage with which his views are presented. The 
London ' World, a free lance in critical journalism, de- 
scribes him with a decided touch of acerbity in writing of the 
part he took in the debates relative to the Labor legisla- 
tion of the last session and in that on the 16th of July, 1875, 
relating to the expenses of the Prince of Wales on his Indian 
trip. Mr. Macdonald had declared that every such grant 
did more to make the English workingmen disloyal than 
all the efforts of Republican agitators, and spoke of him- 
self as representing that class. The writer in the World, 
whose articles read like those of the witty author of " Men 
and Manner in Parliament," first compliments Mr. Burt, 
the member for Morpeth, as " a real and substantial acldi- 



ALEXANDER MACDONALD. I 55 

tion to the representative power and character of the House 
of Commons," and says that " his sterling merit receives the 
acknowledgment of respectful and interested attention 
whenever he wishes to speak, in the most fastidious, aris- 
tocratic, and uncompromisingly critical assembly in the 
world." He then dissects the member for Stafford in a 
strain which if racy, cannot be considered as complimen- 
tary : 

" Mr. Macdonald, the other titular working man's re- 
presentative, is much better known and far less liked. I 
do not know whether he ever worked with his hands in the 
sense that Mr. Burt, if he boasted at all, might claim to 
have done, but I should say not. He has communicated 
to the undoubting 'Dod' the interesting fact that he was 
' educated at Glasgow University,' from which I gather 
that neither grammar nor good manners forms a portion of 
the training received at that renowned institution. Mr. 
Macdonald would probably feel insulted if he were regard- 
ed as a working man, but it is impossible to consider him 
as a gentleman. There is about him a vulgarity which- 
has a touch of originality in it, even as the position he as- 
sumes is without precedent. Mr. David Davies, the mem- 
ber for Cardigan, though not professionally a working 
man's candidate, is, as he has often told the House, a man 
who once lived by the labour of his hands. He was, I 
have heard, a sawyer, and I'll wager our time against that 
of Greenwich that he was a top-sawyer. Mr. Davies has 
not much of a drawing-room air about him, and he speaks 
the English of Llanfairfechan. But no man feels uncom- 
fortable in his company, for the simple reason that he is 



156 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

at ease with himself, being strong in the sense of his own 
honest intention, and careless about what other people are 
thinking of him. Mr. Macdonald is as uneasy as a barn- 
door fowl that has borrowed for use a peacock's tail, and 
goes in mortal fear lest it should fall off. He is in a con- 
stant state of unrest, torn by the conflicting emotions of 
desire that every one should see the tail, and dread lest 
some one should observe the stitches by which it is fasten- 
ed on. See him now, whilst Lord Elcho is speaking on 
Mr. Cross's Employers and Workmen Bill ! He might 
have found an opportunity of delivering his own empty and 
ill-made phrases half an hour ago ; but observing Lord 
Elcho with a bundle of notes in hand, he crossed over, and 
sitting down in the gangway simmering with satisfaction 
at thus holding easy converse with a live lord who will 
some day — thank Heaven — be a peer, he said he would 
follow him, and so secured the advantage of filling up the 
interstices in his talk by familiar references to ' the noble 
lord opposite.' In the meanwhile he is sitting on the 
front corner seat below the gangway, the most prominent 
and commanding position in the House of Commons, and 
is leaning forward anxiously waiting Lord Elcho's sitting 
down, the signal for his own uprising. When the time 
comes he jumps up with ill-disguised anxiety, lest the 
Speaker should name some one else, and so deprive him 
of the satisfaction of speaking in a debate in succession to 
a noble lord. This anxiety set at rest by the Speaker's 
complaisance, he begins with — ' Mr. Speaker, — Sir,' and 
proceeds in an irritatingly impressive way to say nothing, 
interspersed with sickening iteration of the unctuous 



ALEXANDER MACDONALD. I 57 

phrases, ' the right hon. gentleman at the 'ead of her 
Majesty's Government,' 'the right hon. gentleman the 
'Ome Secretary/ ' the noble lord opposite,' and ' the R'y'l 
Commission of which I believe I had the honour to be a 
member.' Of counsel, of information, or of suggestion, 
Mr. Macdonald's speeches in the House of Commons are 
absolutely void. That tail, being a foreign substance, is 
always tickling him and recalling his attention to himself. 
If you listen to his speeches you will observe that he some- 
times says 'we,' but his favorite construction of sentence 
involves the constant use of the pronoun in its singular 
number. It was a strikingly characteristic of him that when 
the Royal Commission on the Labour Laws came to draw up 
their report he should have dissented from the conclusions. 
If you examine the expression of dissent you will find that 
there is very little in it, and nothing at all that could by 
any construction offend the noble lord and other distin- 
guished persons with whom he had the lifelong pleasure of 
being temporarily associated. But it was necessary that 
the tail should be brought out and spread in this highly 
advantageous position. To be one of the ' we ' who de- 
clare the judgment of a Royal Commission was satisfac- 
tory ; but to be the ' I,' with a whole paragraph to your- 
self, indicating less that you are wiser than your fellows, 
and a truer friend of the working classes — for Mr. Mac- 
donald's vanity does not take even that comparatively ro- 
bust form — than that you were there, a person duly and 
specially authorized by her Majesty to make an inquiry in 
her august name, and that you sat at the same table on a 
footing of ceremonious equality with a ' noble lord/ this 



158 BRIEF. BIOGRAPHIES. 

was something worth living for, and as a last lingering grip 
of the fleeting honour — the ultimate drop in the cup of your 
wonted luxury — we had this paragraph all to -itself, lifting 
Alexander Macdonald out of the ranks and placing him 
on a pedestal where the tail might be soothingly spread 
out in the winking sunshine that pretended not to see the 
stitches." 

The London Beehive, under date of July 24th, comes 
to the defence of Mr. Macdonald, in a manner not less 
vigorous than the critic's assault. Being the official organ 
of the English Trades' Societies, its views are significant 
as to the esteem in which Mr. Macdonald is held by a 
common constituency. It describes the World as " not 
absolutely a scandalous production," but as one that seek- 
ing " out commercial and other cognate immoralities" 
revels in their exposure ''with a piquancy of phrase" which 
is sensational. It protests against the " smart exaggera- 
tion" by which it seeks to injure the " usefulness" of the 
" labor representatives" and adds : 

" We think it may be said that the constituencies that 
returned Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Burt to the House of 
Commons were not particular — in fact, cared nothing — as 
to the intonation of their words, nor did they trouble 
themselves as to provincial phraseology or accent ; they 
did not scan too closely the agreement of nouns and verbs, 
or other peculiarities by no means confined to the working 
men members of the House of Commons, and of which 
Messrs. Macdonald and Burt are far from being the ex- 
tremest examples in the House. The working men want 
realities rather than semblances, men who will speak out 



ALEXANDER MACDONALD. I 59 

plainly in the manner natural to them, the thoughts, the 
wishes, and the wants of their class, not mincing dealers 
out of pretty and correct sentences." 

The praise given to Mr. Burt is spoken of as being " as 
unnecessary as it is tardy and insincere. Its censure of 
Mr. Macdonald may be replied to in the same way. The 
working men of Stafford did not know nor did they care 
what such men as those who write in the World might 
think about the appearance, the manner, or the language 
of Mr. Macdonald." 

As to Mr. Macdonald' s pursuits and education, the 
Beehive writer says that the working men know that he has 
labored with his hands, and that he "has never in any 
way tried to conceal the fact ; but upon all necessary and 
fitting occasions has made it known. Nor does Mr. Mac- 
donald claim to have a full University education. He 
simply makes known the fact that out of his earnings as a 
miner, he struggled to give himself something of the ad- 
vantages desirable from the University of his native dis- 
trict. The attempt was creditable, and the success not to 
be questioned, when the detracting and cramping toil of 
the mine 'is taken into account, as^ well as the other de- 
pressing circumstances attending the daily trials of a 
werkingman's life. But upon what he acquired as educa- 
tion in Glasgow University, Mr. Macdonald has never 
rested any claim to the support of the working classes. 
His claims are far better founded. They rest on tasks 
voluntarily entered on, perseveringly pursued, and success- 
fully accomplished, for the amelioration of the class of 
workers amidst which his lot was cast. He labored to 



l60 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

rescue women and young children from the — to them — de- 
moralizing, degrading, and crushing toil of the mine ; to 
shorten the hours of labour for men, improve generally 
the conditions under which they worked, and to increase 
the payment received for their labour, and as a conse- 
quence to augment the comfort of their homes.' , 



X. 



Thomas Brassey. 




HE member for Hastings is an example of a 
man not dwarfed by having had a very capable 
even distinguished father. The positivist 



and 



phrase " Captain of Industry " is often used in 



meaningless way, but personally applied to men like the 
Brassey s, father and son, it possesses an admirable appro- 
priateness. The father was notable for having been one of 
the earliest and largest of railroad contractors and employers. 
But he is more noticeable also for having been among the 
largest, but as is generally agreed,one of the fairest employers 
of labor to be found in his day and generation. The son has 
followed his father's example in spirit, if not in fact, by 
devoting a great deal of practical knowledge, wide experi- 
ence and finely cultured capacity, to the introduction of a 
better mode of dealing with labor, in law and society, in 
business and government alike. 

Of late, the character and work of the Brasseys. father 
and son, have been made quite widely known. The first 
ii 



l62 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

has been introduced to the public by Sir Arthur Helps' 
attractive biography ; and the last by his own writings, 
besides legislative, and other public efforts, bearing on the 
relations of labor to capital and to society in general. * 
John Ruskin seems almost to have had the senior Brassey in 
his mind when he wrote of " mastership " to his artisan 
friend, Thomas Dixon, cork-cutter of Sunderland, the second 
of the remarkable letters, since published in a collected 
form. f Ruskin says; "there are just and unjust master- 
ships ; " and adds, that though co-operation is better than the 
latter, " there is very great room for doubt whether it be better 
than a just and benignant mastership. " He thinks that the 
wages system might be made so just that it should be " suffi- 
cient and regular " to each " according to his rank ; " that by 
it " due provision shall be made out of the profits of the 
business for sick and superannuated workers ; and by, 
which the master, being held responsible as a minor king or 
governor for the conduct as well as comfort of all those 
under his rule, shall on that condition be permitted to retain 
to his own use the surplus profits of the business which the 
fact of his being master may be assumed to prove that 
he has organized by superior intellect and energy.'* 

The elder Thomas Brassey was among the first persons 
in England to enter regularly into the business of railway 
construction, which he did in 1834, at the suggestion of 
the elder Stephenson. At that time, this sort of work had 



.* " Brassey's Life and Labors." Arthur Helps, Roberts, Boston. — 
" On Work and Wages." Thomas Brassey, Bell & Daldy, London. — 
"Articles on Co-operation." Contemporary Review, London. 
t " Time and Tide." John Wiley, New York, pp. 6, 7. 



THOMAS BRASSEY. I 63- 

not " begun to run in grooves, * # * but required new 
modes of operation, and the creation of skilled labor of a 
new kind ; also the management of larger bodies of men 
than hitherto had been brought together for public works, and 
a more rapid movement of these armies of laboring men, 
from place to place, than had ever been requisite."* Mr. 
Brassey continued actively engaged in this business until 
1870, — a period of twenty-eight years, during which time he 
contracted for, and constructed 6,498^ miles of railroad, 
more than two-thirds of which was in other countries than 
his own. He constructed roads in France, Germany, Italy, 
Switzerland, European Turkey, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, 
Austria, Russia, the East Indies, the Australian Colonies, 
South America and Canada. The variety and extent of 
these operations have given the greatest value to his 
experience in the management of labor and to the testi- 
mony borne by himself and by his sons. Mr. Brassey handled 
enormous sums during his business life, amounting, his 
biographer states, to " seventy-eight millions " (pounds) 
"of other people's money, and upon that outlay retained 
about two millions, and a half. The rest of his fortune 
consisted of accumulations. "f His profit never exceeded 
three per cent. It is recorded of him that he never had 
but one lawsuit, was never knowingly wronged by an agent 
or employee in any money transaction, was always enlarging 
the compensation of those who worked under him, when 
they made extra exertions, or when it was evident that 
their industry, skill and enterprise had largely carried 

* Helps' "Life of Brassey," p. 27. 
t " Life of Brassey," p. 158. 



164 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

through a successful contract ; that he declined all honors 
or public position, and always bore his testimony to the 
good conduct of workmen when properly treated. In truth 
a perusal of Arthur Helps' work will illustrate what Auguste 
Comte must have had in view when he urged that the 
" Captains of Industry" were to be the future leaders of 
the civilized world, and that moral force itself would be 
the best law to keep them in the highways of just dealing 
and fair stewardship. It would be difficult to imagine 
young men becoming sordid and mean, or mere drones, 
who had the good fortune to be reared in such an atmos- 
phere as that of the Brassey household. 

The eldest son, Thomas Brassey, now member for 
Hastings, was born at Stafford in 1837, and is therefore 
in his thirty-eighth year. His father was born in 1805, at 
Buerton, in the parish of Aldford, in Cheshire. He was 
the son of John and Elizabeth Brassey of the same parish. 
The family is an ancient one, having owned and occupied 
for nearly six centuries an estate of three or four hundred 
acres, at Bulkeley, Malpas, Cheshire. The Brasseys are of 
the most direct Anglo-Norman stock, the founder of the 
family having been a soldier in the army of William the 
Conqueror. The Bulkeley manor is still a favorite family 
residence. In addition thereto, the grandfather owned 
land at Buerton, and also rented a large farm from the 
Marquis of Westminster. Mr. Brassey, senior, was articled 
at sixteen to a land surveyor. He early became connect- 
ed with the management of the property on which Birk- 
enhead, the nourishing town on the Cheshire side of 
the Mersey, near Liverpool, was built. It was the ac- 
cident of supplying stone to George Stephenson for the 



THOMAS BRASSEY. 1 65 

construction of the Sankey Viaduct, on the Manchester and 
Liverpool Railroad, that led to Mr. Brassey's becoming a 
contractor. He had, two years before, married Maria 
Harrison, daughter of a forwarding agent doing a large 
business in Liverpool. Mrs. Brassey has survived her 
husband. His biographer says : " It is always a difficult 
m atter to speak in praise of those who are living, and who 
may not like to read commendation of themselves. But, 
notwithstanding this necessary reserve, it is but right to 
mention the fact that Mr. Brassey's first connection with 
railways was partly due to the advice which he received 
from his wife." The domestic sacrifices that were imposed 
on her by the engagements of her husband can readily be 
seen in the frequent change of residence required by them. 

The eldest son was partly educated in France, owing 
to the fact that his father was engaged there. The family 
changed their residence eleven times during the first thir- 
teen years of Mr. Brassey's new business career. These 
changes and his subsequent necessary absences from home, 
threw the entire charge of the education of her sons into 
Mrs. Brassey's hands, until they were old enough to go 
to the public schools and the university. The eldest son 
was sent to Rugby and then to University College, Oxford. 
After graduating he studied law, and was called tothe bar at 
Lincoln's Inn in 1864. As he was certain to inherit a 
large fortune, his professional studies must have been 
prompted chiefly by a desire to prepare himself thorough- 
ly for the public life on which he soon after entered. 

One of the most interesting chapters in the biography 
of his father is one m which extracts are made from letters 
written to Sir Arthur Helps by the present Mr. Thomas 



1 66 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Brassey. They contain interesting facts, delicately stated, 
in relation to the character, tastes, etc., of his father. They 
show also the influences under which his own mind has 
been formed. He speaks of the powers of observation his 
father possessed, of the interest he took in all engineering 
projects and plans, of his love for oratory, sculpture and 
fine architecture, and his careful observation of the com- 
mercial and agricultural resources of the country through 
which he was passing. His son says : " Whenever he 
travelled abroad he was a busy sight-seer. He used to 
visit the churches, the public buildings, the picture galleries, 
with the keenest interest. He would seldom leave a great 
city, though the primary object would probably have been 
some matter of business, without giving almost as much 
attention to its works of art, and its architectural monu- 
ments as the ordinary traveller, whose only object is the 
love of art or change of scene. 

" I remember, during my Rugby days, an agreeable jour- 
ney with him to the South of France : his object being to 
inspect the works on the Lyons and Avignon Railway, at 
that time under construction. After he had completed his 
examination of the line, he determined to devote a couple 
of days to an excursion from Avignon to Nismes. On 
our way from the station at Nismes to the hotel, we passed 
the Maison Carre'e, so justly celebrated for the exquisite 
character of its architectural proportions. I do not think 
he had heard much about this building, perhaps he might 
never have heard of it before, but he immediately appreci- 
ated its great beauty, and remained at least half an hour 
on the spot that he might examine that admirable monu- 
ment of ancient art from every point of view." Mr. Bras- 



THOMAS BRASSEY. 1 67 

sey speaks in discriminating terms of his father's love of 
sculpture and admiration for porcelain ; his recognition of 
finely proportioned ships — yachts especially — and his 
delight in fine reading and good oratory. In politics the 
elder Brassey was a Conservative, but never endeavored in 
any way to influence his son's political opinions. In busi- 
ness matters he was always his own amanuensis, never 
employing a short-hand writer, until late in life and after a 
stroke of paralysis. No letters were unanswered. Of his 
father's kindliness of character, Mr. Brassey says, that " he 
evinced at all times the most anxious desire to assist 
young men to enter upon a career in life." He always 
urged " those who sought his advice, to begin by giving to 
their sons a practical knowledge of a trade." He possess- 
ed great patience, a remarkable power of business state- 
ment ; was kindly in judging of others, even to a fault ; 
sought to avoid all offence to those about him ; accepted 
gracefully, but not servilely, social distinctions, and, his son 
continues : " in all he said or did, he ever showed himself to 
be inspired by that chivalry of heart and mind which most 
truly ennobles him who possesses it, and without which one 
cannot be a perfect gentleman." The father, thus affec- 
tionately described, died December 8, 1870, and was buried 
at Catsfield, Sussex. He left a widow and three sons ; 
Thomas, then, as now, member for Hastings ; Henry 
Arthur, the member for Sandwich, and Albert. 

Mr. Thomas Brassey entered the political arena soon 
after leaving the university, as an avowed liberal, inde- 
pendent and moderate. He unsuccessfully contested, in 
1 86 1, the borough of Birkenhead, with whose early prosper- 
ity his own family was identified. He was returned for 



1 68 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Davenport in 1865 ; but a general election followed im- 
mediately, in which he lost his seat. He was, however, 
elected at Hastings in 1868, and again in 1874. 

During his parliamentary career, Mr. Brassey has gen- 
erally acted with the liberal party, but he has in several 
instances shown his independence by defending and voting 
for propositions not accepted by Mr. Gladstone's ministry. 
He has acted usually with the advanced liberals on matters 
of education, franchise, and the labor laws. It is his posi- 
tion in regard to the relations of labor and capital, and his 
extensive knowledge of practical matters that enter into 
them, that make his career one of marked prominence 
and gives him an influence not usual in men so young 
in years and public life. The writer of the biograph- 
ical sketches embodied in the Beehive " Portrait Gallery," 
who represents very closely the judgments and opinions 
of intelligent labor in England, says of Mr. Brassey's posi- 
tion, that " he is nearly always found on the side of the work- 
ingmen, and, it is needless to say, that what he utters on 
such occasions is received with more than ordinary attention 
by the House, and tends powerfully to forward the just claims 
of the working people. To this it may be added that on 
all questions connected with labor, Mr. Brassey is accessible 
to those who act on behalf of the workingmen, and in him 
they always find a safe and friendly adviser. 

" But the most notable service rendered by Mr. Thomas 
Brassey to the labor movement in Great Britain was the 
publication of his instructive and important book, entitled 
' Work and Wages.' This is not in any sense a controver- 
sial work, and it deals scarcely at all with the opinions of 
employers of workingmen as such. It simply gathers 



THOMAS BRASSEY. 1 69 

together the recorded experience of his father's life, not 
only as a great employer of labor, but as an employer who 
had carried on his operations in nearly all parts of the 
world ; and it adds to this recorded experience the results 
of his own careful study in the chief fields of our great 
industries, and proves his case from this in a very clear 
and masterly manner. What the importance of that case 
is to the British workingman will be easily enough under- 
stood when we state the matter in dispute between capital 
and labor to which it refers. Putting the building trades 
on one side, all the great industries of England are carried 
on with reference to foreign markets, and therefore have 
to be regulated in regard to the cost of production by a 
real or presumed foreign competition. All attempts made 
by workingmen to better their condition by advanced 
wages or shortened hours of labor in these trades have 
been met by the cry that if such demands were granted 
we should lose our trade through foreign competition. 
This was the ' wolf ' always at hand to alarm the timid, 
and in this cry all men's throats had become musical who 
had any pretence to be friends of capital or students in the 
science of political economy. The friends of workingmen 
who had studied the question knew how hollow and unreal 
all this pretended fear was. They knew that Continental 
labor was nominally cheaper, and that Continental hours 
were longer; but they inferred very correctly, from the 
actual and daily increasing predominance of English 
manufactures in foreign markets, that English labor was 
practically more valuable. To them it was clear that their 
skill, energy, and perseverance, in connection with their 
superior machinery and other advantages, gave better 
8 



170 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

results than Continental manufactures had obtained ; and 
they knew also that workers on the Continent were not 
satisfied with their condition, and. that in regard to work 
and wages they were struggling to attain to the British 
artisan's standard. 

" Over and over again these things were urged by the 
advocates of labor in England, but the Press was closed 
against them, and their facts and argument, therefore, 
never reached the ear of the general public. In such 
circumstances Mr. Brassey's book was just what was 
wanted. It was peculiar in its character, as it drew its 
facts from a special source. Its logic was the logic of life. 
His father had employed hundreds of thousands of English- 
men, and he had also employed men in large numbers 
belonging not only to every country in Europe, but to 
every land, north, south, east, and west, where any great 
works requiring skill or labor had to be constructed. He 
had not only to employ the native worker on the spot, but 
had to calculate the value of the men of different classes 
and nations, as commodities to be imported or exported 
for the economic performance of the work on hand. He 
had, in fact, to look at the question every way, in the most 
honest, practical, and unprejudiced manner, and his deliber- 
ate verdict was that, all things considered, the labor of the 
Englishman was the cheapest labor in the world. It is 
true he got more wages and was more his own master, 
being less amenable to arbitrary dictation that any other 
worker ; and yet he was decidedly the cheapest, when the 
value that he gave in return for his wages was properly 
taken into account. 

" We cannot here state the variety of tests by which Mr. 



THOMAS BRASSEY. 171 

Brassey proved this in his-very valuable book. We state 
simply, but most emphatically, that he did prove it in such a 
manner as to leave no doubt on the mind even of the most 
prejudiced, and by doing so he has put to flight a phantom 
which can now only be called up again by the utterly 
ignorant, or those whose purpose it is to keep alive a prof- 
itable superstition. This is but one out of the many 
valuable points in Mr. Brassey's book, but it is the one of 
most practical value to workingmen in reference to wages 
and hours of work. The labors of Mr. Brassey, generally 
in relation to questions of capital and labor, are characterized 
by much fairness, and he does not confine his views to one 
set of questions. At the last annual Congress held at 
Halifax,* Mr. Brassey presided, and delivered an inaugural 
address, characterized by great thoughtfulness, and over- 
flowing with sound practical advice of the very best kind. 
The services rendered by Mr. Brassey # * # are willingly 
but unostentatiously given. He is a capitalist, and a 
friend of capital ; but he is, beyond this, a friend of justice 
and fair dealing. * * * Mr. Brassey comes to the side 
of workingmen in this way, and what he has already done, 
without a touch of partisanship, gives a cheering promise 
of what he may do in the future to help forward England's 
workers on the grand path of self-improvement and self- 
elevation, along which they are at present moving. 

" We have not noticed in this brief sketch the study 
which Mr. Brassey has given to nautical questions ; but he 
is well known by the attention which he has given to them, 
and the useful practical works he has performed in relation 

* Co-operative congress of 1873-4. 



172 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

thereto. He served as a member of the Select Committee 
on Compulsory Pilotage. He is now a member of the 
Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships. He has also 
published pamphlets on ' Organization of our Naval 
Reserve,' and on 'Recent Admiralty Administrations.' 
Mr. Brassey has made several voyages, including several 
visits to the Mediterranean, cruises in the Baltic, and on 
the Norwegian coasts ; and has also ascended all the 
navigable rivers on the east coast of the United States, to 
the highest point which can be reached by sea-going ves- 
sels. He is the author of ' Notes on Algeria,' letters 
describing a journey in Syria and Palestine, as well as 
journeys in Norway and the United States. He has also 
published important pamphlets on Trades' Unions, Co- 
operative Production, Wages, the Duty of the Church in 
relation to the Labor Question, and on Education in 
America." 

He has been, among the contributors who, in the Fort- 
nightly and Contemporary Reviews, have written papers 
bearing on such topics as are named in the Beehive 
sketch. 

The valuable book "On Work and Wages," which is 
referred to in the foregoing quotations, is worthy of careful 
examination. It is written in a liberal and comprehensive 
spirit, and deals with its chosen themes in a manner alto- 
gether different from the usual tone of the all-wise editor- 
ial writers who seek to instruct the public every time a dis- 
pute culminates in a strike, or grows to the dignity of an 
agitation. Mr. Brassey's little volume gives a historical 
sketch of Trades' Unions and strikes, and adds chap- 
ters on demand and supply, maintaining that the " Cost 



THOMAS BRASSEY. J 73 

of Labor cannot be determined by the Rate of Wages ; " 
comparing the " Industrial capabilities of different Nations," 
showing that " Dear Labor stimulates Invention ; " discuss- 
ing the "Hours of Labor" and the "Rise of Wages," in 
other countries than England. Then follow a " Comparison 
of the Commercial Progress of Nations ;" and a discussion 
of the question whether labor is becoming dearer. The 
"Influence of American wages on the English labor 
market," is a valuable chapter. Mr. Brassey thus sums 
up : " The influence of the price of labor in the United 
States has been felt in this country (Great Britain), and 
no economist can doubt that it will soon be felt in those 
branches of industry in Germany in which' the wages are 
so much below the English rates of pay." # Mr. Brassey 's 
concluding chapters discuss the "Alleged Physical De- 
terioration of the Laborer," — giving a negative answer 
to the theory, — the " Fluctuations of Wages ; " " Co-oper- 
ation," " Piece-work," and " Courts of Conciliation." 

Mr Brassey read a very interesting address before the 
Social Science Congress at Norwich in 1873, being a gen- 
real review of the labor market at that period. Speaking 
of shortening the hours of labor and of the effects of this 
policy on English production, Mr. Brassey refuses to regard 
a limitation of the hours of labor as an evil in itself. He 
says of the theory he combats — " I cannot share in this view. 
Because some may make an unwise use of their newly-ac- 
quired advantages, that is no reason for returning to a for- 
mer state of things ; when in the general depression of trade 
an undue pressure was brought to bear upon the working- 

* " On Work and Wages," p. 207. 



174 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

man. No doubt, says Sir Arthur Helps, hard work is a 
great police agent. If everybody were worked from morn- 
ing . until night and then carefully locked up, the register 
of crime might be greatly diminished. But what would be- 
come of human nature, where would be the room for growth 
in such a system of things ? The use of leisure requires 
education, and that education has not been fully given to the 
mechanics, miners and puddlers of former generations." # 
A more recent article shows a considerable advance in 
literary skill on the part of Mr. Brassey, as well as of ca- 
pacity to handle his chosen themes. In the article al- 
luded to he reviews the subject of " Co-operative Produc- 
tion," giving a very clear and comprehensive account of the 
movements in that direction, not only in Great Britain but 
in other countries also. After summing up the facts relating 
to co-operative stores, Mr. Brassey proceeds to those of pro- 
duction. He reviews at length the difficulties in the way 
of managing such enterprises, shows the want of admin- 
istration, knowledge and skill, and the disinclination to 
place the needed power in the hands of managers. Mr. 
Brassey says : 

" When co-operative production has been introduced into all 
branches of industry successfully and on a sufficiently extensive scale, 
we shall then have the universal gauge or measure of the workman's 
rightful claims. From the day when the workman will take his part 
in the deliberations which accord to capital its fair rate of interest, 
and to the wage-earner his due, from the day when the workman may 
count with certainty on a just and equal participation in the profits of 
every enterprise in which he is engaged, in proportion to his merits, 
strikes, it is to be hoped, will cease, and workmen will be devoted to 
the successful prosecution of the industry in which they find their 

* " Wages in 1873." London, Longmans, Green & Co. 



THOMAS BRASSEY. I 75 

employment. If it should appear an exaggeration of the powers of 
human nature fo adopt the principles on which Fourier insisted, and 
to regard all labor as a pleasure, it is possible to conceive conditions, 
in which labor would appear neither irksome nor distasteful. The 
laborer might have more satisfaction in working under the direction 
of persons selected by himself, than he now experiences under the 
authority of an employer upon whom he is entirely dependent as the 
distributor of wages " * 

He points out that capitalists and employers of labor 
are not, as a class, regardless of the rights of others, and 
declares "that the disposition to be liberal towards work- 
men is developed, as a general rule, in proportion to the 
extent of the business and the capital of the employer." 
Struggling ones are more apt to be selfish and grinding. 
He takes exception to the theory that the intermediate 
class, persons of moderate but independent incomes, is 
becoming smaller ; and points out the fact that the average 
size of farms in the United States is stated at 154 acres, 
and that in seventeen representative counties the farms of 
England are but 152 acres each. He urges the advantage 
of individual over corporate business control, and quotes 
Erastus Bigelow of Massachusetts, against the system of cor- 
porations. The article embraces an account of all the known 
productive co-operative efforts, and gives very interesting 
details of the sub-contract and piece-work plans adopted 
by his father and other great railway contractors, claiming 
for them the character of co-operative effort. Another 
statement of value is one relating to "piece-work," in iron 
ship building. He also discusses the "partnership of 
labor " plan as introduced in coal mining by Messrs. Briggs 
& Sons, and by Messrs. Fox, Head & Co., in manufac- 

* " Co-operative Production. — Contemporary Review, London,^/)/, 1874. 



176 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

ture. The latter scheme gives every one a pecuniary interest 
in success and profit, proportioned to service rendered. 
Wages and Salaries are paid at ordinary rates. Capital 
receives a specified interest rate. A fund for repairs 
and plant is to be maintained, also one against loss by 
bad debts. After these sums are paid the profits are 
divided between capital and labor. This scheme, Mr. 
Brassey says, has worked well for eight years, and he adds : 

" In that interval, amid the many fluctuations to which their trade is 
always subjected, they have paid between ;£ 6,000 and £j,oco to their 
workmen by way of bonus ; and the result has been eminently satis- 
factory to the employers. They think they have a superior class of 
workmen, and that they stay longer at the works. They obtain the 
best prices for their manufactures. They have no disputes, and pay 
no contributions to standing committees or courts of conciliation. 
Thus, the employers are well content with the arrangements they 
have made ; and the conduct of the workmen shows that a feeling of 
mutual satisfaction prevails." 

The closing paragraphs of this article are so thoughtful 
and worth considering, as illustrating what a wise repre- 
sentative of the capitalist class thinks of the probable 
tendencies of the Labor Agitation, that they will bear 
reproducing. Mr. Brassey alludes to the fact that travel 
is no longer confined to the wealthy or well-to-do classes, 
but that working-men circulate more freely from country to 
country. Their class interest will, he thinks, bring them 
closely together, and so make " them regard with stronger 
aversion those national struggles in which, from motives 
of personal ambition, their rulers in past ages have been 
too ready to engage. Already we see in Germany a party 
being formed whose sympathies are for France. The 
originators of the movement are the artizans in the two 



THOMAS BRASSEY. 



177 



countries ; and, as their numbers will probably increase, 
they may exercise a valuable influence in promoting the 
blessed work of reconciliation."* 

So, too, he regards " the solidarity of the two peoples " 
as surer guarantee for " a close and permanant alliance," 
between Great Britain and the United States," than the 
most elaborate contrivances of diplomacy." Appealing 
for a better feeling in his own land, Mr. Brassey writes in 
closing : 

" As union is most earnestly to be desired between the same classes 
in different countries, so it is not less desirable between different 
classes in the same country. If it is hard for the privileged few to 
appreciate the difficulties of the. masses around them, who are strug- 
gling forward in the battle of life, it is still harder, we may rest 
assured, for the poor to appreciate the peculiar trials of the rich. We 
may plead for princes their isolation, and for the nobly-born the 
absence of many powerful motives which fire the ambition of men of 
modest station and lead them forward to a career of usefulness and 
distinction. We may urge on behalf of the rich that they are a tempt- 
ing prey to designing men, and can seldom earn the gratitude reserv- 
ed for those who are believed to practice the virtue of self-denial ; 
but we may rest assured that the mass below them, contending for 
bare existence, have little sympathy to spare from the constant trou- 
bles of their own lives, for trials that to them must appear artificial 
and self-imposed. 

" Whatever the poor may feel towards the rich, the duty of the 
rich towards the poor is too plain to admit of misconception. Wheth- 
er moved by considerations of policy, or by the nobler impulses of 
humanity, it must be the object of our universal solicitude that no 
class in society should be exposed to the fatal influences of despair. 

" Multitudes there must be in every city contending amid waves that 
threaten destruction; and when, with anxious glances they seek a 
refuge from the storm, can they descry the happy isles in which they 
may repose ? The land, if seen, is far away, their bark is sinking, 

* Contemporary Review, July, 1874, p. 232. 
8* 12 



173 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

and their only hope the aid of those who have already gained the 
shore. 

"An idea prevails in certain quarters abroad that there is no 
sympathy between the affluent classes in England and the masses of 
their less fortunate fellow-countrymen. Much more truly may it be 
affirmed that in no other country is the same deep interest felt in the 
welfare of the poor. It is because this sympathy exists, that in Eng- 
land we have as yet been spared the miseries of social disunion ; and 
from this the most dire calamity which can befall a nation Heaven 
grant we may remain for ever free ! " * 

Mr. Brassey is a fine type — physically and mentally — of 
the English gentleman, descended from an estimable 
family, of a class which represents the very best stock in a 
land where so much store is set on ancestral qualities. 
Coming, too, from an immediate parentage so honorably 
identified with the broadest activities of modern civiliza- 
tion, possessed of all the advantages the best education 
and wealth can afford, he. unites therewith a positive char- 
acter, and a kindly breadth of judgment and experience 
which are sure to make him hereafter a man of more 
marked influence in English politics. He is a man of 
comely appearance ; of middle stature, well knit, athletic 
frame, kindly but thoughtful face, large, brown eyes, 
hair, and light side-whiskers. His head is large and well 
balanced, and the forehead is broad and open, a fair index 
of the mind. His manners are grave but courteous, and, 
like his father, Mr. Brassey is always accessible. He 
has been an efficient co-worker in the Plimsoll agitation, 
so far as Parliamentary action is concerned ; in other mat- 
ters he has commonly given an active support to measures 
like those of Mr. Trevelyan and Sir Charles Dilke for 

* Contemporary Revinv, p. 232-3. 



THOMAS BRASSEY. I 79 

extending the franchise and redistributing seats. So well 
grounded is the popular faith in Mr. Brassey's purity of 
purpose and just intent, that even when he takes adverse 
ground on a labor or political question or dispute, as he has 
recently done in the great lock-out of miners in South 
Wales, no one has questioned his sincerity of motive. 
Mr. Brassey is married, and children are growing up by his 
hearth-stone. The advent of men of his stamp in the 
public life of any country is an event always to be wel- 
comed ; but their activity (for Mr. Brassey is not alone) in 
British politics is a matter of congratulation to the peo- 
ple of England, and of service to all others, for the light 
they will be able to shed on different sides of the world's 
great social and economic problem — the Labor Question. 



XI. 



Samuel Morley. 




HE late Richard Cobden, speaking in favor of 
Electoral Reform in Great Britain, argued that 
the wisest policy to pursue was for those in 
power from time to time to garrison present institu- 
tions with new forces and fresh recruits. This is a 
favorite idea with the member from Bristol, Mr. Samuel 
Morley, and presents a fair statement of the philosophy 
which guides his political life. It is not a difficult thing 
to indicate the party affiliations of an English gentleman, 
who is at all active in public affairs, when you have named 
the family and other class associations from which he 
sprung, or in which he moves. So too, if he is in the 
House of Commons, his position may be generally appre- 
hended by naming the borough he represents, if there is 
even a slight knowledge of English political history. For 
many years past, no one but an " advanced " politician in 
the field of finance or electoral reform, has sat for the 
borough of Finsbury. It would not be possible for any 



SAMUEL MORLEY. l8l 

one other than a leader in the economic school known by 
the name of that great manufacturing burgh, to sit for 
Manchester : and Bristol, for which Mr. Morley has sat 
since 1868, has not sent to Parliament for many years any 
one but an independent Radical. For a century it has 
been marked for opinions of this cast ; and at various 
periods of popular agitation, its people have grown impa- 
tient at delays and hastened the progress of needed reforms 
by significant disorder and turbulence. The passage of 
the reform bill of 1832 was accelerated by the riots at 
Bristol, quite as much as the later one was by the fall 
of the Hyde Park railings under the orders of the Reform 
League. Mr. Morley, by his birth and early associations, 
as well as his mature convictions, fitly represents the an- 
cient borough for which he sits. 

Samuel Morley is an elderly gentleman of striking ap- 
pearance, bearing in his open and benignant face, the evi- 
dence of a benevolent character as well as of a firm and 
thoughtful mind. He possesses wealth, public spirit, a 
courteous and kindly disposition, and a courage which 
leads him Readily to champion a right cause or vigorously 
expose wrong doing. He belongs to the wealthy middle 
class — the manufacturing and commercial interests — which 
have given to modern England so many of its best citizens. 
He is the youngest son of John Morley, of London and 
Nottingham. His father was the head of one of the 
largest hosiery manufacturing firms in England, and his 
sons have succeeded to the business. Samuel Morley was 
born in 1809, and is in his sixty-sixth year. He is one of 
the finest looking men in the Commons and one of those 
most sure to be noticed by a stranger. In 1841, at the 



I 82 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

age of thirty two, Mr. Morley was married to the daugh- 
ter of Samuel Hope, a well known banker of Liverpool. 

Mr. John Morley was a prominent laymen in one of 
the leading evangelical sects, and his sons from their 
childhood were the friends of the foremost nonconform- 
ing divines of England. This association began to influ- 
ence Mr. Samuel Morley at a period when all liberal 
thoughts ran largely to political action. Among those 
with whom the Morleys were on familiar terms, was Dr. 
John Pye Smith, a famous Biblical scholar, whose activity 
was marked in many other fields. Dr. Smith was an 
ardent supporter of Joseph Hume, the sturdiest financial 
reformer England has seen for a century past ; and later 
in life, he was an ardent supporter of Cobden and Bright in 
their anti-corn-law struggle. His influence largely affected 
Mr. Samuel Morley's life and principles, and on the 
latter's entering public life, he was recognized both by 
the public and his co-religionists, who form an important 
element of the Liberal party, as the rightful heir to politi- 
cal convictions like those of his learned friencl. 

As a large employer of labor at Nottingham, Mr. 
Samuel Morley is known as the friend and supporter of 
Mr. Mundella in all his earlier efforts to introduce, as a 
remedy for labor troubles, the Boards of Arbitration and 
Conciliation which have since proved so fruitful of good 
results. In his public career, Mr. Morley is recognized 
as an authority on all legislation on questions relating tc 
capital and labor. His opinion on some of these matters 
is expressed very clearly in a letter addressed to a Mr. 
Kelley of Bristol, who was actively engaged in the organi- 
zation of the Agricultural Laborers' Unions, and at th> 



SAMUEL MORLEY. 1 83 

same time in promoting the establishment of arbitration 
boards. Mr. Morley writes : — 

" I very heartily sympathize with you in the efforts which you are 
making. * * * These boards are, I am convinced, the very 
best remedy for the evils and misery which come from lock-outs and 
strikes. They serve to make masters and men think about the justice 
of their respective claims, and prevent the enormous loss of labor, and 
consequently of capital (which is only accumulated labor's results), 
which presses most heavily in time of strike on the workman and his 
family. I sincerely hope your efforts will be crowned with success. 
It is most opportune to have everywhere the boards formed and ready 
to act before the differences arise, and to have them consist of the 
most strictly upright and honorable persons, capitalists and laborers 
in the various localities." 

It was not until 1865 that Mr. Morley entered Parlia- 
ment. Having been, after sharply contesting Nottingham, 
unseated at the close of his first session on account of 
informalities, which in no wise affected his own character or 
political purity, Mr. Morley did not again offer himself as 
a candidate until 1868. He then stood for Bristol, and 
was elected in November of that year, and again in 1874. 
He identified himself with the Liberal Ministry, generally 
supporting their measures. Among his earliest votes was 
that cast for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, a 
measure which he was convinced, he said, would strength- 
en, not weaken Protestantism. Mr. Morley represents 
that portion of the nonconforming sects which do not 
fully accept the political leadership of Mr. Miall or the 
policy of the Liberation society. He is disposed to com- 
promise on the "Erastian " principle — that of concurrent 
endowment. But like Mr. Miall he is a strenuous oppo- 
nent of all compulsory supports of a state Church, or other 



184 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

religious body. Mr. Morley very early entered with great 
activity into the agitation for public education, and when the 
act of 1870, establishing School Boards, was made law, he 
became a candidate for the Board of London. So much are 
his presence and influence valued in this field, that when 
business cares and public duties compelled his absence 
from its deliberations for several months and he tendered 
his resignation, he was unanimously asked by his colleague 
to withdraw the request. No better idea can be given of 
the great work that is being done in this important field 
than to present the following brief statement of the result 
in London, made by Mr. George Potter, editor of the Bee- 
hive, who, with a Mr. Lu craft, was elected to represent the 
working class in this body. It will be remembered that 
many of the foremost men in England have stood for and 
been elected as members of School Boards. 

Mr. Potter says, that in 187 1, the London Board de- 
cided to build accommodation for 112,000 children. In 
these new structures eighty-five schools have already been 
opened, twenty-two more are being constructed, and work 
on seventeen others will soon be commenced, making a 
total of 127 new buildings, which will accommodate 105,00c 
children. In 187 1 there were enrolled in the "efficient" 
schools of London (before the labors of the Board begun) ; 
208,250 children. At the close of 1874 the number was 
343,100. The average daily attendance was at the first 
date 171,767 ; at the last it was 256,394, being 84,624 more. 
The cost of these schools is about $49 for each child, 
which is about 48 cents on each dollar of assessed valua- 
tion. The amount, spent or to be provided for, up to March, 
1875 was £h°Z*A9 2 > 7 s -5 d -> or nearl y $$^S1, 00 °- 



SAMUEL MORLEY. I 85 

As a business man of large experience, Mr. Morley 
has already shown himself efficient in the preparation and 
carrying of necessary legislation. Several measures have 
been proposed and carried through by him for the improve- 
ment of commercial law and especially of Bankruptcy pro- 
ceedings. He has urged with great earnestness the pas- 
sage of an act to enable the Public Works Loan Commis- 
sioners to make advances to the limited owners of entailed 
estates for the building and improvement of the laborers 
cottage — being one of a series of propositions to which 
Mr. Morley has closely devoted himself, all looking 
to the improvement and elevation of labor, and the cor- 
rection of abuses which have grown up in the shadow of 
inherited privilege and wealth. Mr. Morley votes in nearly 
every instance with Sir Charles Dilke for redistribution of 
seats, with Prof. Fawcett in measures for the suffrage and 
education of laborers ; with Messrs. Mundella, Macdonald, 
Burt and others for the abolition of special legislation as 
applied to workmen ; with Mr. P. A. Taylor in opposition 
to the game laws and against the unpaid magistracy, though 
he is in commission for Middlesex county where he resides ; 
with Plimsoll on the shipping bills, and with Sir Wilfrid 
Lawson on the Permissive Liquor act. He does not usu- 
ally follow the " irreconcilables " — now recruited from 
four in the last House to eighteen in the present one 
— into the lobby, when they divide the House upon 
a royal grant or modification of the civil list. In 
financial matters, Mr. Morley is consistent in his ef- 
forts to reduce taxation. He was among the earliest 
friends of the Reform League, giving freely of his means to 
that and other similar movements. He was one of the 



1 86 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

first public men in England to recognize the importance as 
well as the justice of the Agricultural Laborers' move- 
ment ; and presided at the Exeter Hall meeting, when Joseph 
Arch made his first speech to a London audience, sup- 
ported by such widely varying champions as Cardinal 
(then Archbishop) Manning and Charles Bradlaugh. The 
speech of the latter consisted of a single ringing resolution in 
which it was declared that. the only remedy for the laborers 
distress and wrongs was in an equitable settlement of the 
Land Tenure question. The London Times editorially re- 
ferred to it as the important event of the meeting. 

Mr. Morley was also the Chairman of the second meet- 
ing on the same question, when in 1874, the farmers of 
the eastern counties inaugurated an extensive lock-out. 
Mr. Morley's speech was a strong one, though free from 
all bitterness. 

He had, he said, " not the slightest doubt as to the pro- 
priety of his being there that evening to express deep and 
earnest sympathy with the agricultural laborers. The life 
which the poor fellows lived was a disgrace to Christians 
of this country." 

■■ Deeply anxious to see an end put to the present state 
of things, he had tried very hard," he added, " during the 
last fortnight, to procure the intervention of men of posi- 
tion, influence, and independence." It was a duty to 
cheer on every man, mechanic or peasant, " in the deter- 
mination to do something towards raising his own social 
position." 

Speaking of his sympathies with the laborers, he 'de- 
clared, that these were no new opinions or feelings : he had 
" always felt and thought that working men have a right to 



SAMUEL MORLEY. 1 87 

meet together and decide the price at which their labor 
shall be sold." As to locking out those who unite for 
this purpose until they dissolve their Union, he regarded 
it "as a positive act of tyranny, an interference with the 
rights of Englishmen ; " and he, for one, had made up his 
mind to " help them in every practicable and possible way 
to maintain their position." 

It is said eulogistically but apparently with truth, that 
Mr. Morley's " moral instincts are noble and unselfish, and 
his natural disposition is generous and liberal. Knowing 
that his great wealth comes to him through the industry of 
those whom he employs, he never forgets their claims in 
the indulgence of any caprices of his own. His chief 
pleasure consists in promoting works of usefulness and 
aiding purposes of philanthropy. Unpretendingly plain 
and rigidly abstemious in his own habits and mode of life, 
he knows no luxury but that of doing good. His love of 
truth amounts to a worship. His sense of justice is quick 
strong, and steadfast. His hatred of oppression is a pas- 
sion. These are the sentiments that form and fire his ora- 
tory, which by virtue of a simple and straightforward strenu- 
ousness, often transcends the highest flights of eloquence, 
at once more catching in its influence and more abiding 
in its results." # 

* Beehive " Portrait Gallery," London, 1874. 



PART III. 
PARLIAMENTARY AGITATORS. 



XII. 

Samuel Plimsoll. 




HE man who most moves men is the one who 
usually keeps the coolest in times of great ex- 
citement. Said Theodore Parker during the de 
livery of a remarkable discourse — that which followed the 
assault on Charles Sumner in 1856 — "the blacksmith 
must keep cool when the iron is at red heat and 
needs moulding." But there is an ardor which sweeps 
all before it, so nearly divine are its ingredients. The 
member for Derby has felt it arouse him to a pas- 
sion that in its intensity was almost sublime, and in its 
effect more than grand. Trampling under foot all mere 
conventionalities of time and place, he stirred first the 
House of Commons, and then the people of Great Britain 
to an understanding of the cause, which, animating this 
man, enabled him to fling denunciation at the English 
government and the avaricious greed to which they had 



192 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

cringed ! Parliamentary history records no incident more 
striking than when Mr. Plimsoll woke the echoes in St. 
Stephens, on the 23d of July, 1875, and shamed a nation 
into action. The words he uttered, so smiting in their 
directness, sounding in their terrible invective like the 
denunciations of an Hebrew prophet, recall that mar- 
vellous arraignment of Warren Hastings which alone would 
have made Edmund Burke renowned as an orator. Samuel 
Plimsoll is no Edmund Burke — he is not a man of genius 
in the sense usually understood by the term, but he is 
possessed of that deep sympathy for human suffering 
which is so rare and so much more ennobling than the 
merely intellectual, however massive, can ever be. . 

The member for Derby is now in his fifty-first year. 
He was born at Bristol in 1824, being the fourth son of the 
late Thomas Plimsoll, Esq. His mother was Priscilla, 
daughter of the late Jonas Willing, Esq. He was private- 
ly educated by Dr. S. Eadon, M.A., M.D., and married in 
1857 Eliza Ann, daughter of the late Hugh Railton, Esq. 
Mr. PlimsolPs own business being that of a coal merchant, 
his attention was called to the condition of the English 
marine service, and the horrible recklessness exhibited to- 
wards the sailors, as to their treatment and their lives. In 
the coal trade Mr. Plimsoll has amassed a large fortune, 
which he has for some years past been spending freely in 
furtherance of the great work he has undertaken. His 
wife sympathizes with him fully, and this true gentleman 
and lady, with their children, live in the plainest style suit- 
able to their social position, economizing closely in order 
to have the means wherewith to meet the possible judg- 
ments that may attend the libel suits that have beset the 



SAMUEL PLIMSOLL. 



193 



agitation inaugurated by him. Moncure D. Conway writes 
from London # that 

" Mr. Plimsoll's madness was not that of the intellect ; it was a sort 
of divine passion, breaking out with thunder and lightning. This man 
has dwelt on the scene of poor wretches struggling amid the waves 
to an extent hardly appreciable by the gentlemen of England who 
live at home at ease. He is a nervous gentleman, too ; thin, pale-faced, 
with an affection of the eyes which makes it necessary for him to wear 
colored spectacles. He has often reminded me of the portraits of 
Washington. * * * He and his wife have for many 

years devoted themselves with absorbing enthusiasm to the work of 
saving seamen. * * * Mr. Plimsoll was induced to seek a 
place in Parliament, not by any personal ambition, but purely for the 
sake of his cause. By his persistent inquiries and agitation he suc- 
ceeded, against many powerful influences to the contrary, in making 
out a case for investigation, and the facts brought to light were such 
that no Government could dare to withhold support from his reform. 
A week ago he was one of the happiest men in England. At a dinner, 
where I had the pleasure of meeting him, he said that he had been 
privately informed by a member of the Government that they had 
substantially adopted his bill, and meant to put it through. The 
crowning success of his cause appeared just at hand." 

It was upon that exultant moment that Mr Disraeli's 
cruel nihilism broke like thunder in a clear sky. Mr. 
Plimsoll however seems to have been prepared. He 
heard during the day what was coming, and went to 
the Commons armed for whatever might happen. Early 
last spring, speaking to a distinguished American who 
had a wide naval experience and personally knew the great 
need of Mr. Plimsoll's exertions, that gentleman said 
that he expected to go to the Tower before his work was 
accomplished, as there would be no remedy made success- 
ful, until the lightning of public indignation had struck 

* Cincinnati Commercial, August 6th, 1875. 
9 13 



194 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

those who were fattening on wholesale murder. If Mr. 
Plimsoll was mad there was evidently method in it. 

It has been apparent from the first that the agitation, 
begun by the member for Derby as a work of pure hu- 
manity, had drifted into an issue of political importance, 
and the last incident bids fair to aid the overthrow of the 
Disraeli ministry. Mr. Plimsoll's practical defeat of the 
Conservative Premier is a political blow more severe than 
the personal insult which Daniel O'Connell aimed at him, 
when he imagined him to be a lineal descendant of the un- 
repentant thief on the cross. Mr. Plimsoll, when he pub- 
lished his remarkable volume " Our Seamen " dedicated 
both the large and cheap editions to " The Lady, Gracious 
and Kind, who seeing a Laborer working in the rain, sent him 
her rug to wrap about his shoulders " — thereby recording his 
admiration of an incident narrated to the honor of the 
Queen herself. His politics are however of the advanced 
radical order, and in Parliament and before the people, he 
votes for and advocates the measures, which are tending so 
rapidly to making England shoot that Niagara, to which 
Thomas Carlyle has so vividly referred. Dod's Parliamentary 
Manual classifies Mr. Plimsoll as an " advanced Liberal." 
He voted for the' disestablishment of the Irish Church in 
1869, and with Mr. Miall in 187 1 ; supports Sir Charles 
Dilke's proposition for a re-distribution of seats, Mr. 
Trevelyan's bill for the extension of the franchise to Agri- 
cultural laborers, demands the abolition of all rate-paying 
clauses, supports the labor legislation and is an active ad- 
vocate of arbitration, co-operation, temperance, and nation- 
al compulsory education. Mr. Plimsoll was a candidate 
in 1865, but unsuccessful. He was elected in 1868, and 



SAMUEL PLIMSOLL. 1 95 

was re-elected in 1872. Before entering on this portion of 
his life, Mr. Plimsoll was known as a successful merchant, 
the author of important pamphlets on the Export and 
Indian Trades, published in 1862, and as one of the most 
efficient of the honorary secretaries to the London Univer- 
sal Exposition of 1851. He himself says he was induced to 
seek a seat in Parliament in order that he might thereby 
advance his agitation, and in the strangely interesting book 
he has written, " Our Seamen " — all the more attractive 
because wholly and purposely void of any literary preten- 
sions, — he appeals to the people in this wise : " I do not wish 
to represent Parliament as indifferent to the interests of 
workingmen. * * # Parliament will act readily enough 
if people out of doors make it a prominent question ; and, 
so thoroughly satisfied am I on this point that I begin to 
doubt whether I was right in trying to get into Parliament 
with the object of getting this done. It seems to me at 
least doubtful whether I should not have done better to 
have endeavored to rouse people out of doors to the ur- 
gency of the matter." He then declares that if he fails 
to obtain a Royal Commission of Inquiry, he shall re- 
sign his seat, and do that. " I will then, as God may help 
me, and with such fellow-workers as I may find, go from 
town, to town, and tell the story of the sailors' wrongs. For,, 
if the workingmen of Sheffield, Leeds, Birmingham, and 
Manchester only demand justice for these poor men, the 
thing is done. The workingmen of Derby have done 
their part ; for when, moved by the sailors' wrongs, I asked 
them to send me to Parliament to seek for justice, they 
sent me by over 2000 majority." * 
*"Our Seamen." Popular Edition, Virtue & Co., London, p. 120. 



I96 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Mr. PlimsolPs sympathies and exertions are, as he 
states, the result of personal knowledge both of the life of 
workingmen as a class, and of the particular dangers to 
which British sailors are exposed. On the latter point, 
his special experience as a coal merchant and shipper has 
been supplemented by frequent coasting and other voy- 
ages, undertaken for health and amusement. Both Mr. 
and Mrs. Plimsoll are fond of the sea. On one occasion, 
they went from London to Hull, on the Yorkshire coast, 
a voyage which skirts the most dangerous portions of the 
British shores. The steamer in which they took passage 
appears to have been greatly overloaded, and a very severe 
storm was encountered ; the vessel, crew, and passengers 
were in great peril, and in their gratitude for their escape 
Mr. and Mrs. Plimsoll promised themselves to undertake 
their present agitation. How well and thoroughly it has 
been performed, the later incidents which have made Mr. 
Plimsoll's name a " household word," prove beyond ques- 
tion. The larger part of the expenses have been borne by 
himself, and all the earlier portion came from his own 
purse. After the member for Leicester had thoroughly 
informed himself, as he then believed and has since proved, 
he prepared a volume, octavo in form, containing photo- 
graphs of the original documents, drawings, measurements, 
insurance policies, etc., which he had obtained, beside 
the remarkable narrative accompanying them. This was 
published at his own cost, and by him widely distrib- 
uted. Among the pathetic appeals which abound in this 
singularly tender and sympathetic exposure of a horrible 
system, Mr. Plimsoll says : " Now, you who read these 
pages — somebody shall read them, if I have to give away 



SAMUEL PLIMSOLL. 1 97 

the whole edition — will you help me to put these things 
right ? * He adds his address and says no one need fear 
to burden him too heavily with correspondence. 

In the pages immediately following, Mr. Plimsoll gives 
some autobiographical facts,the narration of which heightens 
the general impression made by a review of his labors — of 
his genuine simplicity, sincerity, and intensity of character 
— not lacking by any means in an apt and notable amount 
of sagacity and adaptation of means to ends. Mention has 
been made of the social position of his parents. It will 
appear that Mr. Plimsoll himself, soon after his own active 
life commenced, was greatly reduced in circumstances, and 
through that fact came to have the experiences which he 
thus utilizes to arouse interest in the class for which he 
pleads : 

" I don't wish to disparage the rich, but I think it may 
be reasonably doubted whether these qualities " — he has 
alluded in a preceding paragraph to honesty, industry, 
generous comradeship, and courage — " are so fully devel- 
oped in them ; for, notwithstanding that not a few of them 
are not unacquainted with the claims, reasonable and un- 
reasonable, of poor relations, these qualities are not in 
such constant exercise, and riches seem in so many cases 
to smother the manliness of their possessors, and their 
sympathies become not so much narrowed as, so to speak, 
satisfied — they are reserved for the sufferings of their own 
class, and also the woes of those above them. They sel- 
dom tend downward much, and are far more likely to ad- 
mire an act of high courage, like that of the engine-driver 

*"Our Seamen." Cheap Edition, Virtue & Co., London, p. 107. 



I90 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

who saved his passengers lately from an awful collision by 
cool courage, than to admire the constantly exercised forti- 
tude and the tenderness which are^the daily characteristics 
of a British workman's life. 

" You may doubt this. I should have once done so 
myself, but I have shared their lot ; I have lived with them. 
For months and months I lived in one of the model lodg- 
ing houses, established mainly by the efforts of Lord 
Shaftesbury. # * * I went there simply because I 
could not afford a better lodging. # # # Don't sup- 
pose I went there from choice — I went from stern neces- 
ity — and this was promotion too, — and I went with strong 
shrinking, with a sense of suffering great humiliation, re- 
garding my being there as a thing to be carefully kept 
secret from all my old friends. In a word, I considered it 
only less degrading than spunging upon friends, or bor- 
rowing what I saw no chance to pay. 

" Now what did I see there ? I found the workmen con- 
siderate for each other. I found they would go out (those 
who were out of employment) day after day, and patiently 
trudge miles and miles seeking employment, returning 
night after night unsuccessful and dispirited ; only, how- 
ever, to sally out the following morning with renewed de- 
termination. * * And I have seen such a man 
sit down wearily by the fire (we had a common room for 
sitting and cooking everything), with a hungry, despondent 
look — he had not tasted food all day — and accosted by 
another, scarcely less poor than himself, with " Here, mate, 
get this into thee," handing him at the same time a piece 
of bread and some cold meat, and afterwards some coffee, 
and adding : ' Better luck to-morrow ; keep up your 



SAMUEL PLIMSOLL. 1 99 

pecker.' And all this without, any idea that they were 
practising the most splendid patience, ""fortitude, courage 
and generosity I had ever seen. You would hear them 
talk ,of absent wife and children, sometimes these in a dis- 
tant workhouse (trade was very bad then), with expressions 
of affection, and the hope of seeing them again soon ; 
although the one was irreverently alluded to as ' my old 
woman,' and the latter as ' the kids.' " # 

Mr. Plimsoll says he "soon got rid of miserable self 
pity there. " He urges that workingmen are not to be 
estimated merely from the small per cent, who are idle 
or of drinking habits. He proceeds to say that " emulous 
of the genuine manhood all around him, he " set to 
work again," and by preparing himself more thoroughly for 
his business " than had previously been considered neces- 
sary," he was "soon strong enough to live more in accord- 
ance with his previous life." He adds, " but I did not 
leave all at once. I wanted to learn the lesson 'well ; and 
though I went reluctantly, I remained voluntarily, because 
the kindly feelings I took with me had changed into hearty 
respect and admiration." f 

He recites many incidents of mutual and generous 
help, and gives a number of pathetic incidents of be- 
reaved families encountered by him in the course of 
the 'investigations he has made of late years. Mr. Plim- 
soll deprecates all literary character and merit for his book, 
and declares that he would not have written it had he not 
addressed it as a personal appeal to a correspondent. 
But its effect is in some respects that of almost the highest 

* " Our Seamen, '" pp. 108-9. t Ibid - P- IIa 



200 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

literary art. The explanations relating to the ships are 
lucid and clear, and at the close the reader has a good 
idea of the processes of the " homicidal system " which 
he has fairly denounced as murderous in character. Re- 
membering that the House of Commons which listened 
awe-struck to Plimsoll's outburst on the 23d of July, 
which cheered during its progress and only interrupted 
when he became apparently indecorous, is practically the 
same assembly that a few years ago greeted Gladstone with 
ironical cheers and laughter, when he declared the unen- 
franchised masses of England were " the same flesh and 
blood " as themselves, and that the London press which 
derided Disraeli and sustained Plimsoll, is the same that 
nicknamed the Liberal Statesman " Flesh and Blood " 
Gladstone, in scorn of his so-called sentimentalism, it 
cannot but be perceived that the constant infusion of the 
Democratic spirit, is teaching the supercilious that there is 
" nothing common or unclean " that the Divine spirit has 
created and blessed. A London letter in the N. Y. Herald 
cleverly illustrates by the Plimsoll incident how Mr. Dis- 
raeli mistakes the present English temper, and finds excuse 
for indifferentism in the weariness of reformatory politics 
which there as else were, has made for itself a temporary 
period of recuperation before it goes forward to more serious 
ends. The correspondent says unde'r date of July 24,* 
that— 

" The reign of mutual compliments and good will, of the inter- 
change of bland civility and deferential courtesy which Mr. Disraeli 
has striven not unsuccessfully to introduce at Westminster, was very 

*N. Y. Herald, August 8th, 1775. 



SAMUEL PLIMSOLL. 201 

suddenly interrupted * * in the House of Commons. The Plimsoll 
incident I regard as the natural Nemesis upon the principles on which 
the Prime Minister has undertaken to manage Parliament. Of course, 
we do not want any more drastic legislation at present. We want to 
be as we are, at rest, and we are thankful accordingly. But Mr. Dis- 
raeli, whose theoretical acquaintance with the English character is as 
profound as his contempt for its idiosyncratic traits is sincere, chooses 
to convert what should be merely a season of politic inaction into a 
period of bland badinage. It was said by Chamfort of the ancient 
monarchy of France that it was a monarchy tempered by songs ; it 
may be said with equal truth of the government of Mr. Disraeli that 
it is a despotism tempered by jokes. Perhaps this is the natural reac- 
tion after the political asceticism and gloom of the Gladstonian era, 
just as the excesses of the Stuart Restoration followed upon the ar- 
tificial severity of Puritanism. But I think Mr. Disraeli has already 
begun to go too far. His fooling is certainly exquisite, but it is ex- 
cessive, and the British Senate is beginning to rebel against it." 

Mr. Disraeli is himself a compromise, and it is not 
possible for a man who is intellectually " shifty," to under- 
stand the spirit which makes men like Mr. Plimsoll a power. 
" Flesh and Blood " more than " facts and figures," except 
as they deal with them, are coming to the front. " A 
clever mountebank " is the severe judgment some have 
passed, on the English conservative leader. It certainly 
seems as if the limits of his power were found, but that he 
is, as yet, unconscious of the fact. His airy reference to the 
scene in the House of Commons as the "Plimsoll incident," 
at a subsequent civic dinner, points to this, and his mis- 
apprehension of the spirit in which his purpose to throw 
over a bill for the saving of human life in order that he 
might avoid the unpopularity of retaining his followers be- 
yond the period at which their annual field sports usually 
begin, has been received by the people of whom he is now 
the chief commoner, illustrates his inability to regard a 
9* 



202 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

thing so real as any less a compromise than other ordinary 
political measures. 

The Herald writer, who is probably Edmund Yates, 
judged by the internal evidence of the style, says that — 

" Mr. Plimsoll may at least boast that he has studied, the subject. 
By profession a coal merchant, he has had large practical insight 
into the details of our system of marine transit, and it is experience 
that causes him to feel so profoundly the magnitude of the evil he is 
bent on remedying. Where, it may be asked, did the opposition to Mr. 
Plimsoll's movement originate ? Where else should it than with the 
representatives of the shipping interest ? The gentry who metaphor- 
ically go down to the deep, and whose business is thereon, have no 
motive in particular for caring for the welfare of their craft or for that 
of the sailors whom they employ. The former, * * * are heavily 
insured. The latter are but men who, if they are lost on the high seas, 
can be replaced easily. Now, the shipping interest — that is, the in- 
terest of the ship-owners — is represented with unusual strength in the 
House of Commons, and it is from the representatives of this class 
that the resistance to Mr. Plimsoll's agitation proceeds. Rightly or 
wrongly, Mr. Plimsoll regards Mr. Edward Bates, the member for 
Plymouth, as the gentleman immediately interested in the perpetuation 
of these many abuses, and it was the presence of this gentleman 
which raised the member for Derby to such an intensity of wrath. * * 
Mr. Bates is a conservative of the new type — a wealthy, one-ideaed 
merchant, who feels that he has a stake in the country, and that he must 
protect his interests. The House of Commons is just now swamped 
with such as these, and Mr. Plimsoll's suspicions are at least plausi- 
ble. But Mr. Disraeli can afford to offend Mr. Plimsoll, and cannot 
afford to irritate the plutocrats, shippers, merchants and others who 
are the backbone of the conservative party." 

Mr. Plimsoll's allegations in brief are that under the 
present English system, or want of one, ships are constantly 
being sent to sea utterly unfit to encounter the weather ; that 
they are regularly overloaded ; that they are in many cases 
over-insured ; and that this fact is a premium on the prac- 



SAMUEL PLIMSOLL. 203 

tice of sending to sea and overloading the most rotten hulls 
as well as those otherwise unseaworthy, and that sailors, 
under present legislation are arbitrarily compelled to sail 
in a vessel, for service in which they have signed articles, 
though they may afterwards become conscious of her utter 
unseaworthiness. British seamen can be arrested without 
warrant, on complaint of owner or captain, and taken 
aboard their vessel, or if they still refuse to sail, they can, 
at the option of the authorities, be imprisoned for several 
months for each offence. An English vessel may, unlike 
an American built ship, change its name at the owner's 
will. Here it cannot be done without the consent of Con- 
gress, after being once registered. English seamen may 
be discharged at will in a foreign port; an American 
shipped crew cannot be so dealt with, unless there be 
three months' extra wages paid over to the consul for the 
men's use, and to prevent them becoming a public charge. 
The bill which Mr. Disraeli roused Mr. Plimsoll's righte- 
ous indignation by attempting to postpone, only attempted to 
extend to the British Board of Trade more power to do 
what was in principle already conceded to it ; namely, to 
prevent unseaworthy ships from sailing, and to see to it 
that ships were not overloaded. These two are the prac- 
tical points towards which Mr. Plimsoll's agitation and de- 
mands have lately tended. They do not cover all that he 
deems necessary. The bill which he himself introduced 
provides in addition for the compulsory survey of all mer- 
chant ships, — a measure which is now optional with the 
owner. Of the measure brought forward by the Govern 
ment in place of this one, Mr. G. W. Smalley writes to 
the New York Tribune that the bill " is pregnant with no 



204 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

principle, or none that is new. The object is only to ena- 
ble the executive to do more rapidly what they can do 
already: stop unseaworthy vessels about to leave British 
ports. That power was given by the acts of 187 1 and 
1873 to the Board of Trade. Under these acts they 
have during the last two years stopped 558- ships for sur- 
vey and 58 because overloaded ; and. all the latter and 
nearly all the former proved unseaworthy. The process of 
detention, however, is not summary, and there are not offi- 
cers enough. The present bill enables the Government to 
appoint forthwith a sufficient number of officers, with— 
as far as can be made out from Sir Charles Adderley's 
rather confused account — powers to stop vessels on their 
own discretion. The bill does nothing more than this, ex- 
cept to free sailors (when one-fourth of the crew complain 
that their ship is unseaworthy) from responsibility for 
costs if she proves not so, and does not oblige them to de- 
sert in order to complain. Against inward bound ships, 
which drown more sailors than outward bound, no power 
is given." 

He adds an account of the opposition indignation to 
the insufficient measure and writes — 

"The Times declares that the new bill does not bear out 
the promise given, and will not do even as a makeshift for 
the coming winter. The Standard itself admits the House 
did not relish Sir C. Adderley's proposals, and while it 
does not believe Mr. Plimsoll's bill can be passed, pro- 
nounces its principles sound, and advises the Government 
to adopt it in part. If they refuse, there will still be time 
for other meetings to repeat the demands of those already 
held — possibly even to convince the Government that for 



SAMUEL PLIMSOLL. 205 

once it is wiser to legislate in accordance with a public 
opinion so overwhelming as to be practically unanimous."* 
Mr. Plimsoll explains in " Our Seamen " how it is pos- 
sible to make over-insurance so general. " Lloyd's Under- 
writers " are not as in the United States, chartered insur- 
ance corporations, but private persons and firms, whose 
general designation is derived from their having first met 
in " Lloyd's " coffee-room, near the London Exchange. The 
business is conducted through shipbrokers, who, acting for 
the owners, proceed to the underwriters' room, and offer 
the different risks that may have been given them. There 
are perhaps fifty persons present engaged in marine under- 
writing, and the several risks may each be divided among 
one-half or the whole. So if a vessel is lost, the total to 
each individual or firm is usually too small for them to 
contest payment, however much they may be convinced of 
the scandalous nature of the transaction. The ship own- 
ers are the power in these cases ; not the underwriters, as 
is usually the case on this side of the Atlantic. It was 
stated by the secretary of Lloyd's Register, an institution 
unconnected with the underwriters, that no British vessel 
had been broken up for thirty years past. They are sent 
to sea until they founder and fall apart from utter rotten- 
ness. Lloyd's Register or classification is a mercantile con- 
venience which grew up in consequence of the extension 
of marine underwriting. It is a merely voluntary marine 
survey, and to honest ship-owners, as Mr. Piimsoll has re- 
peatedly asserted the majority are, a great convenience 
and advantage, making their ships more saleable, if they 

* N. Y. Tribune, August 9th, 1875. 



206 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

desire to dispose of them. To follow the details of ship- 
owning practices, as described by Mr. Plimsoll, would fill a 
goodly volume. Extracts from speeches made at the 
Liverpool Trades Congress in April, 1875, by Mr. Plim- 
soll and some of the delegates — practical shipwrights and 
workmen — will best illustrate these practices. Mr. Knight, 
a leading mechanic employed in iron shipbuilding, said : 

* # " To-day the vessels that were built were composed 
of the worst materials that could possibly be got. He 
had seen piles of iron plates punched and almost every two 
out of three were broken before they were put on the 
sides of vessels. He had seen the iron so bad that when 
the plates were open after they had been fastened to the 
side they could not be caulked with the proper material 
because the iron would not stand it. Another thing to be 
complained of was inferior workmanship ; and this arose 
to a great extent from the abolishing of the apprentice 
system. ■ Scarcely one lad out of thirty employed in the 
yards was ever bound to the trade of iron shipbuilder. 
Men went into the yards at the ages of 24 to 27, having 
worked before in attending masons. Other evils were the 
cutting down of prices by employers, and piece work. 

# * # Ti ie piece-work system only made even good 
men scamp their work, because the prices were so low 
they could not make a living at their work. There should 
also be an inspection of ships by practical men." Mr. 
Morgan, a ship-carpenter, described wooden ships so rot- 
ten that a stick could almost be driven through their sides, 
and said he had worked himself on a ship where in order 
to drive and fasten a staple an iron plate had to be placed 
on the other side. 



SAMUEL PLIMSOLL. 207 

Mr. Mathew Callahan, Treasurer of the " Liverpool 
Seamen's Protective Society," offered a resolution to sup- 
port a measure embodying the following principles : — 

1.' "That there shall be a compulsory periodical survey of all 
merchant ships, under the authority of the Board of Trade, such sur- 
vey to include the hull, spars, sails, rigging, machinery, and gear, to 
prevent ships being sent to sea in an unseaworthy condition ; 2, that 
an officer of the Board of Trade shall inspect the forecastle for the 
accommodation of the seamen, and the quality and quantity of the 
stores and provisions for the bailors ; 3, that there shall be a load-line 
or conspicuous mark on each vessel, showing the depth of loading 
and of surplus buoyancy, and that some rule of freeboard be enforced 
to prevent vessels being overladen ; 4, that each ship, according to her 
tonnage, shall be efficiently manned by able seamen ; that examinations 
in practical seamanship be established, and certificates of competency 
be granted to able seamen, the use of false certificates to be punished 
as a misdemeanor ; 5, that apprenticeships be restored under proper 
regulations and conditions, and that the number of foreigners in Brit- 
ish ships be limited to at least one-third of the crew; 6, that advance 
notes be abolished, and in lieu thereof that allotment notes be granted 
of two-thirds the monthly pay to those who require it for the use 
of their families ; 7, that wages due to seamen be paid immediately 
on the termination of the voyage, or if not paid within two days, that 
they be compensated with extra pay for being kept waiting ; 8, that 
punishment for breach of contract, or of articles of agreement by 
owners, or masters and crew, be placed on a footing of perfect equal- 
ity ; 9, that local admiralty courts be established in all ports for the set- 
tlement of disputes." 

Mr. Plimsoll is a popular as well as an excitable speak- 
er. His words do not halt by the way, but usually mus- 
ter and march with speed, swift to the purpose before him. 
He has no hesitation in using good, simple Anglo-Saxon 
terms, and is as direct in public meetings as he was before 
the House of Commons, when he described the " burglar- 
ious intention " with which his bill was " burked ; " or of 



208 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

speaking of the "maritime murderers inside and outside 
the House," who aim to " secure a continuance of the 
murderous system." The expressive epithet of " Ship- 
knackers " applied to a class of men who never own a 
sound ship, and seldom any, but charter old and worthless 
crafts, and send them to destruction and their crews to 
death, is a term which in England will be enjoyed for its 
racy directness. There is a regular occupation, in London 
and other large cities, of men known as the " Knackers." 
It consists in buying old and worn-out horses, as well as 
buying and removing dead ones. If there is any work 
left in the former it is utilized till the last. Then the ani- 
mal is killed. The flesh is generally converted into food for 
dogs and cats, in the sale of which there is a large 
trade and a considerable number of persons employed. 
To say that a horse is only fit for the " Knackers' yard " is 
to say that it ought to be dead. The applicability of the 
term to the purchaser of rotten ships can readily be made. 
At Liverpool Mr. Plimsoll said : — 

" There were people who bought old ships, and only old ships — 
who never had a good ship, and never meant to have a good ship — and 
sent them to sea; and the public curiosity was excited to. know 
what the government meant to do to stop that sort of thing, and who 
the people were who could sleep in their beds when their bread was, 
so to speak, made out of dead men's bones." * 

* From a return issued July, 1875, b Y tne Board of Trade,it appears 
that of the total number of vessels detained by the Board of Trade 
under the Act of 1873, for " alleged unseaworthiness," there were 
found seaworthy, 15; found unseaworthy, 464; survey pending, 18 — 
total stopped, 497. Forty-eight more were stopped for " alleged over- 
loading," and the Return states that " in no instance in which the Act 
has been put in force has the allegation of overloading or improper 
loading been found groundless." 



SAMUEL P'LIMSOLL. 209 

Again, in describing the manner in which ships' hulls 
were weakened by lengthening amidships and other ways, 
he said in the same speech that — 

«* * He had since given information of two ships which were 
single riveted where they ought to be double riveted, which were cut 
in two and lengthened with the same scantling, and in which big beams 
had been cut away to make room for tanks, steam engines, and 
thrashing machines, without proper means having been taken to 
strengthen them. He thought people who were content to make 
money like that — well ! they used to hang people ; and they had hanged 
a great many people who were better than some ship-owners." 

In retorting on a ship-owner who was present, spoke 
to the Congress and had described his speech as " sensa- 
tional,'"' Mr. Plimsoll said : — 

" He had no doubt it was, because he felt strongly on the subject ; 
but it was a very sensational thing to be drowned, and he wanted to 
stop that." 

It is this intense sincerity which has made Mr. Plimsoll 
a power, which will keep him a popular public man in 
other movements, and which prevented his anger in the 
House of Commons from becoming merely sensational, 
and lent to the solemn denunciation with which he closed 
his very remarkable protest, somewhat of the same spirit 
that must have dictated the words which he quotes with 
such terrible force : 

" In the name of the God of all justice and of all mercy I protest 
against any further delay. I demand that the Merchant Shipping bill 
be proceeded with from this hour de die in diet?i until through committee, 
and failing this, I lay upon the head of the Prime Minister and his fel- 
lows the blood of all the men who shall perish next winter from pre- 
ventible causes, and I denounce against him and against them the 
wrath of that God who hath said, ' Ye shall not afflict any widow or 
fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all 

*4 



2IO BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

unto me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath shall wax hot, and' 
I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and 
your children fatherless.' How much hotter must be his indignation 
and wrath against those who reduce unhappy women and children to 
that deplorable condition, and who leave their own fellow-creatures, 
guilty of no crime, to a violent and sudden death ! " 

Mr. Plimsoll's personal and public vindication was 
rendered complete by his subsequent withdrawal of the 
unparliamentary language used in the House, without 
retraction of any alleged facts as stated by him in his me- 
morable outbreak. To this was added the subsequent 
passage of a Shipping Bill, which provides provisionally 
for two of Mr. Plimsoll's important demands : — i. The 
appointment of competent surveyors to examine ships as 
to their seaworthiness ; 2. Allowing one-fourth of a crew to 
lay complaint, or if their number exceeds twenty, any five 
of them, and requiring the examination of a vessel as to 
overloading or seaworthiness, without being required to 
give surety for cost of detention, as now required. Mr. 
Plimsoll gave notice before the session of Parliament 
closed, that he should move at the next session for a Com- 
mission of inquiry into marine insurance, its nature, risks, 
business, etc., and should press a more elaborate measure 
for the protection of life and property at sea. 



XIII. 



Sir Wilfred Lawson. 



HE habits of the English people are so fixed, — 
especially in the maintenance of their personal 
customs, as not to be lightly dealt with. No one 
obtaining entrance into public life and selfishly seeking 
public favor would deliberately select, if choosing an issue 
or hobby to champion, such a one as the subject of this 
sketch has taken under guardianship. The last place in 
the kingdom, wherein to advocate the Prohibitory Liquor 
Law, would seem to be the House of Commons. There 
are men of single ideas and purposes who have won large 
places for themselves, in a legislative body, which though 
flattered as the " best club in Europe," often appears to a 
looker-on to be a nearer approach to a bear garden,, and 
is moreover an assembly whose prejudices are more easily 
roused and more difficult to overcome than is the case with 
any other similar body in the world. And of all questions 
on which to obtain a hearing, or through which to become 
recognized and esteemed, that of liquor legislation would 
appear to be the most dubious. 



212 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Sir Wilfred Lawson, Bart, President of the United 
Kingdom Temperance Alliance, and author of the " Per- 
missive Liquor Bill," has however accomplished that 
remarkable feat. A recent letter published in the Boston 
Post says of the member for Carlisle, — the city formerly so 
long represented by Lord John Manners, — that : 

" Sir Wilfred's special hobby is prohibition. He as 
regularly introduces a " Permissive Bill " into the House of 
Commons every year as the late Mr. Berkeley, of Bristol, 
did a " Ballot Bill," thinking perhaps that by a similar per- 
sistency he will meet with a similar final success. He is the 
chief of the famous United Kingdom Temperance Alli- 
ance, a large and powerful body, with ^"150,000 at its dis- 
posal, and having the object of promoting temperance by 
political enactment. But Sir Wilfred is far from being a 
stiff and sour fanatic. Strange to say, this great temper- 
ance advocate, who absolutely refuses to let the House live 
in peace, never bores it, and is always welcome when he 
rises to speak. He is in fact one of the most genial and 
popular of ail Her Majesty's knights and burgesses. Not 
only a prohibitionist, but also a radical of radicals, he is 
yet socially hand in glove with the most obstinate of Tory 
squires in the House. He puts his case in so witty and 
genial a way that even the twenty-five brewers who sit as 
members of Parliament cannot find it in their hearts to 
stay away from the treat of hearing him. Moreover, he 
has wit — I doubt if there is a wittier speaker in England ; 
certainly, since the defeat of Bernal Osborne, he has not a 
rival for wit in the House of Commons. He does not pre- 
tend to be a teetotaller, nor does he profess to desire to 
enact teetotalism as a- statute. He essays to provide a 



SIR WILFRED LAWSON. 213 

mild check upon the intemperance of the country. In- 
deed, for a rider of a hobby, Sir Wilfred is exceedingly 
reasonable and moderate." On the last occasion of intro- 
ducing the permissive bill, which is regularly done at every 
session, " there were nearly five hundred members — a re- 
markable House — present to listen to him." 

This Parliamentary leader of the temperance issue, is 
the eldest son of the late Sir Wilfred Lawson, Baronet, of 
Brayton, Cumberland, and is now himself the wearer of 
the title and possessor of the family estate. A remarkable 
individuality of character and ability evidently runs through 
the family. The Baronet's brother, William, now a resident 
of Massachusetts, is very well known to many persons in 
the United States, having travelled extensively therein, 
and having been a careful student of our institutions, and 
also from his connection with a remarkable agricultural 
co-operative experiment at Blennerhassett Farm, near 
Brayton, the results of which he has told in a very inter- 
esting volume.* In the first chapter Mr. Lawson describes 
the method followed by his father in educating his sons. 
He says : — 

" I had the advantage of being the son of parents who 
were more anxious that their children should be happy and 
good than that they should be learned or great. My father 
had my education conducted — in a religious manner — at 
home, where I acquired a little Latin and Greek, and a 
few other things ; and where, as is the case with many 
other youths, anything in the shape of lessons were not at- 
tractive to me, and I learned as little as possible. I had, 

* "Ten Years of Gentleman Farming." 



214 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

before I was eighteen, travelled several times on the Con- 
tinent of Europe, and had visited Egypt and Palestine ; 
but circumstances never brought me in contact with rich or 
great people, and I had not much of what is called " knowl- 
edge of the world; " nor, as I always had the prospect of 
enough wealth to enable me to live without working, did I 
form what are called "business habits." Trained as a 
shooter of animals, a hunter of Cumberland beasts with 
hounds, and a trapper of vermin, I found myself in the 
spring of 1861, in my 25th year, without an occupation; 
without many acquaintances, — except among the poor, 
whom I had not learned to despise because they spoke bad 
grammar, and took their coats off to work • — and without 
the reputation of having been successful in any under- 
taking except that of the mastership and huntsmanship of 
my brother's fox-hounds." 

The younger brother takes life seriously — like Mr. 
Gladstone " on the Treasury benches," he is always in 
earnest, — and being without the genial humor and clear wit 
of his brother, the Baronet, could not and does not make 
a fair public appearance. But the allusions made to their 
paternal home show the character of the influences that 
surrounded them both, illustrating how in their own way 
each has struggled for the amelioration and advancement 
of their country and its people. 

The temperance agitation in Great Britain, though 
often marked with features somewhat akin to the fever 
and excitement of the Moody and Sankey " revivals," — as 
witness Father Mathew's crusade and progress, — has not, as 
in the United States, had the support of any considerable 
body belonging to the "ruling" and respectable classes 



SIR WILFRED LAWSON. 21 5 

Not until late years has it exercised a perceptible influence 
on public opinion, in any wide spread or national sense. 

"The United Kingdom Temperance Alliance," which 
had before confined itself to " moral suasion " entirely, 
took a " new departure" in October, 1857, and commenced 
an agitation in behalf of the Permissive Liquor bill The 
purpose of the measure is shown by the following state- 
ment : The bill provides that on application of any Dis- 
trict (meaning the civil divisions called parishes, or the 
boroughs and any sub-division of them ;) the votes of the 
rate-payers shall be taken as to the propriety of adopting 
the provisions of this act ; but that a two-third vote shall 
be necessary for any affirmative. When adopted it pro- 
hibits all liquor traffic in the District for common purposes. 
In other words the Lawson bill is in intent similar to the 
measures offered in several of our State Legislatures un- 
der the name of " local option" laws. The first division 
had in the House of Commons was in 1863, and polled 
forty members in the affirmative. In 1869, the bill received 
ninety-four votes. 

The out-of-door agitation has been persistent ; growing 
year by year in activity and interest. The Times has treat- 
ed Sir Wilfred Lawson and the Alliance with more than 
ordinary respect ; the most significant tribute which has 
as yet been paid to the movement's growth and import- 
ance. The " Licensed Victuallers Association," as the 
Guild or Trades society of inn-holders and keepers of 
public houses is termed, is a wealthy and powerful body, 
exercising a great influence and welded together by the 
strongest ties of self-interest. It represents an important 
" vested interest," — one of those which a British legisla- 



2l6 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

tor ordinarily regards as specially committed to his cares. 
" Interests," not men and women, except as their well 
being affects, " interests" and property, are regarded as 
the chief object of solicitude for which that remarkable 
mixture of fiction and fact, precedents and principles, known 
as the " British Constitution," was believed to have been 
framed and recognised. An examination of Hansard 
will show that the " Malt Tax," and excise regulations in 
relation to this traffic, have occupied a very large share of 
legislative attention during the last half century. From 
the drinking habits of the people, the Government derives 
a considerable portion of its revenue. The consumption 
of articles paying duty or excise, as intoxicating liquors, 
was per capita, at the dates named, as follows : 

1853 1S63 1873 

Wine, gallons, 0.25 0.35 0.56 

Malt, bushels, 1.49 I - 6 7 x -9 8 

Spirits, home and foreign, gall. 1.10 0.85 1.23 

As compared with imported or exciseable articles of 
food, such, for instance, as bacon, butter, cheese, eggs, 
sugar, tea, etc., the proportion is quite large, though pro- 
bably not so much so as it appears in the common argu- 
ments of the Alliance advocates. In the foregoing figures 
it will be perceived that the increase in twenty years of 
the consumption of wines and of spirits, is much greater 
than that of malt liquors. Still the intelligence of the 
British masses is so great a fact in the sum-total of their 
improvidence, pauperism and vice, that it is really strange 
that the Alliance had not at an earlier day the support 
of the many notable persons who are now found on its 
platforms, or contributing to its at present large fund. As 



SIR WILFRED LAWSON. 2 I 7 

now constituted, it does not follow that all who sustain 
its efforts are themselves abstainers from all intoxicating 
liquors. Sir Wilfred Lawson himself does not make stren- 
uous demands for this, or do more than urge, as he did in 
a notable speech at Sunderland, that Parliament " go to 
the people " with the question he presents. He said : 

" I won't touch the licensing power with my tongue. For genera- 
tions the House of Commons has protected over it; and the cleverest 
men have tried their hands at it, and I am not going ta make a fool 
of myself by trying to bring in any licensing bill." 

This was doubtless said in reference to the advice 
repeatedly urged by the Hon. John Bright and others 
with whom Sir Wilfred Lawson has acted in all other 
political matters, that he should draft and present some 
stringent license measure, for which they could all vote. 

" That," continued the Baronet, " is not the object of my bill. We 
leave the licenses with the magistrates, if licenses are to be granted at 
all ; but we move the previous question ; we say, go to the people 
and ask whether they want licenses at all ; we go in the old-fashioned 
way. I say, keep the power of electing the best men in the best 
houses ; bad as they are at the best, go on doing the best. In those 
places where the people, by a large majority, say we will have no 
licenses, there the magistrates shall stop their evil work, and the people 
shall be free." 

The strength of this agitation, or rather of its effects, 
may be seen in the fact that the passage, in 1872, of a law 
shortening the hours to which public houses could be kept 
open at night, giving more power to magistrates assembled 
in the Quarter Sessions, to grant or withdraw licenses, and 
requiring a register of all offences committed in public 
houses and under the influence of liquor, aided very mate- 
rially in the defeat of Mr. Gladstone's ministry when, soon 
01 



2l8 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

after, Parliament was dissolved, and an appeal was made 
to the country. The " Licensed Victuallers " with the 
brewers and distillers, exerted themselves to the utmost 
against the Ministry and its supporters. It speaks well 
for Sir Wilfred Lawson's personal popularity that he was 
returned for Carlisle, as before, at the head of the poll. 

In the House of Commons Sir Wilfred Lawson is 
among those whom the author of " Men and Manner 
in Parliament " notes as independent members. After a 
witty reference to the length of Mr. Mundella's speeches, 
this author writes : " It is a pleasant change when, from 
the seat below, Sir Wilfred Lawson rises to discourse on 
the evils of the liquor traffic or the evils of war. * The hon- 
orable and amusing baronet,' as Mr. Knatchbull-Huges- 
sen, himself never guilty of being amusing, peevishly 
called him, has done what few men have accomplished. 
He has thrown an air of gentility over teetotalism, and 
has made 'a man with a mission' a welcome interloper 
in debate in the House of Commons. As a rule Parlia- 
ment votes men with missions impracticable bores, and 
will not listen to them. But it is always ready to hear Sir 
Wilfred Lawson, and is rarely disappointed in its expecta- 
tion of being interested and amused." 

He has a way of seizing a commonplace idea, dressing 
it up in some incongruous fashion, and suddenly producing 
it for the consideration of the House of Commons. The 
simple glory of war was illustrated by Sir Wilfred Law- 
son " when, a few nights after both Houses of Parlia- 
ment had voted their thanks to Sir Garnet Wolseley and 
his troops, he incidentally summed up the practical re- 
sults of the expedition as being comprised in Great 



SIR WILFRED LAWSON. 219 

Britain's having gained possession of "a treaty and an 
old umbrella." * 

In further illustration of Sir Wilfred Lawson's power of 
graphic illustration and humorous wit, T. H. S. Escott, a 
keen and observing writer, speaks of the Baronet as re- 
deeming the session of 1874 from the "absolute dulness of 
monotony." He thus describes the House on one of the 
Permissive Bill divisions : — 

" Let the reader suppose that it is a Wednesday in June- 
The speaker took the chair at 12 o'clock. The motions 
and notices of motion are speedily dispatched, and it is 
understood that Sir Wilfred Lawson will be allowed, for the 
ventilation of his hobby, the period that must elapse be- 
fore the hour hand of the clock, just under the Peer's gal- 
lery, points to the fatal ten minutes to six. On hearing 
the order of the day, Sir Wilfred merely moves that the 
Bill be read a second time, reserving himself for its fuller 
advocacy till later in the afternoon. It is but a languish- 
ing and wearisome talk up to three o'clock. The Speaker, 
bored presumably to exhaustion, adjourns for a chop, 
returning in ten minutes. Sir Wilfred Lawson rises ; * * 
and in a very short time the house is full. It is Sir 
Wilfred Lawson's special vocation to show that compulsory 
teetotalism and solemn dulness need not go together, that 

* " No Treaty ! " shouted out an honorable member anxious for 
truth, " well, never mind ! " said Sir Wilfred ; it doesn't much matter, 
for I don't suppose the treaty would be worth any more than the um- 
brella ?' The honorable baronet's style of speaking is well suited to 
his humor, and greatly adds to its effect. He does not * * make 
a speech to the House. He just has a chat with it, and being a man 
of sense and humor he is a thoroughly enjoyable companion. — " Men 
and Manner in Parliament," pp. 152-4. 



2 20 ' BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

cold water and witticisms are not necessarily inconsistent, 
and that the praises of Rechabitism afford just as good an 
opportunity for the exhibition of sportive fancy and a lively 
humor as lyrical panegyrics on the most exquisite vintage 
of France or the Rhine. # * Sir Wilfred Lawson is 
always ready to relieve the monotony of business, and, 
even though the theme of total abstinence is not under 
discussion to lend him its glowing inspiration, he will find 
his inspiration in any casual topic that may crop up. When 
the honorable baronet is fairly launched upon his theme, 
every alternate sentence that drops from his lips is the 
signal for an outburst of ' loud laughter.' He welcomes 
those ebullitions of merriment, as he informs his audience, 
with grateful satisfaction, for the cause which at first pro- 
vokes smiles is, he remarks, generally in the end crowned 
with triumph." # 

But amused as is the House of Commons at the speeches 
of the champion of this legislation, it is not to be set down that 
Sir Wilfred Lawson is no more than the "Professor of the 
art of buffoonery," which Mr. Escott says, in speaking of 
him, that the House of Commons requires to make up its 
usual characteristic. He is, on the contrary, a very cool, 
clear-headed, logical and persistent worker in a yet unpop- 
ular field, who uses the intellectual weapons at his disposal 
with an effect which is yearly becoming more apparent in 
the gains the movement he leads is making in Parliament 
and before die country. In general politics, Sir Wilfred 
Lawson is counted among the more moderate Radicals ; 

* " The House of Commons : its ' Personnel ' and its Oratory." 
Eraser's, October, 1874. 



( 



SIR WILFRED LAWSON. 22 1 

interested mainly in ameliorative policies and measures, 
such as National Education — Arbitration as a substitute for 
War, and for strikes and lock-outs in labor disputes, — the 
reduction of taxes and extension of the franchise. He 
votes with Mr. Plimsoll for legislation to procure the pro- 
tection of seamen, with Mundella, Macdonald, Morley, 
Burt, Cowen, and others in matters of labor legislation, 
with Prof. Fawcett on matters of education, pauperism, 
woman's suffrage and measures of a social, economical 
character, while on general politics he follows the lead of 
Mr. Gladstone. Though he is one of a class, small but in- 
creasing, who " sit below the gangway " of the House, and 
are counted as " Independents," a cordial and sincere 
support was given by Sir Wilfred Lawson to Mr. Gladstone 
when in power, and to the party when in opposition. 
In the country, before the masses, the temperance baronet 
steadily gains in general influence and personal popularity. 

Sir Wilfred Lawson's last conspicuous appearance in 
Parliament was during the debate on the proposed visit of 
the Prince of Wales to India, and his speech was thus 
described by the vivacious Lander, correspondent of the 
Louisville (Ky.) Courier- Jotirnal, for August 9, 1875 : 

" Later, Sir Wilfred Lawson, celebrated as the origina- 
tor and staunch supporter of the permissive liquor bill 
made the telling speech of the evening. He took excep- 
tion to Mr. Macdonald's statement— Mr. Macdonald being 
ostensibly a workingman's representative — that the work- 
ingmen took a great deal of interest in this question : 
1 Why the House of Commons has reduced itself to such a 
position that very few people take any interest in their pro- 
ceedings.' At this sally the House roared. Sir Wilfred 



22 2 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

would have been glad to hear that the Prince was going to 
make a private visit to India. He was one who commisera- 
ted and sympathized with princes. They really deserved 
sympathy ; for they were barred from public life, and if they 
went into the army, it was said their promotion was the re- 
sult of favoritism. Altogether they had hard lines, for all 
they were permitted to do was to provide vapid amusements 
for stupid people. They could not go out of doors with- 
out being stared at by mobs, while next day the penny-a- 
liners devoted columns to their movements. He did not 
wonder at the Prince getting very tired of all that sort of 
thing — tired of laying foundation stones, opening institu- 
tions, uncovering statues, and eating charity dinners. If 
the Prime Minister had proposed it on the ground that the 
Prince wanted pastime, Sir Wilfred would have had great 
difficulty in opposing him ; but he said that the travelling 
was to educate the Prince, and a friend of his on the Op- 
position Bench connected with India told Sir Wilfred that 
it was desirable that the future ruler of India should be- 
come acquainted with the subjects he would have to gov- 
ern. This Sir Wilfred disputed altogether, for the whole 
constitutional doctrine of England is that the king reigns, 
but does not govern. If this was to be an educational 
mission to teach some one to govern India, why not send 
the Prime Minister ? The Prime Minister has stated that 
the Prince of Wales ought to be placed on his travels in a 
position that would impress India with the dignity and 
station he occupied, but the sum of ^"140,000 would ena- 
ble them to do nothing of the sort. Why, all the great 
Mogul people would beat him quite hollow. Pie could not 
compete with them in magnificence and pomp, and, if they 



SIR WILFRED LAWSON. 223 

outdid him, more harm than good would be done. England 
got possession of India by an admixture of force and 
fraud, and now holds it by force. She can only continue 
to hold it by fair and honest dealing, and not by indulging 
in costly shams. ' Hear ! hear ! ' and unlimited ' oh's 
and laughter greeted Sir Wilfred Lawson's effective, witty 
speech, of which I have given a meagre skeleton. When 
he clapped the climax by saying that if there was the shadow 
of a shade of dissatisfaction with monarchy, it was pro- 
voked by such votes as^ this, there were cries of ' Divide,' 
which, however, passed unheeded." 




XIV. 

Edward Miall. 




HE power of agitation has received, in the life 
of the ex-member for Bradford — the Editor of 
the Nonconformist and the animating spirit 
and organizer of the "Liberation Society" — one of its 
most conspicuous examples. Studying the history of the 
Established Church of Great Britain, and observing how 
closely it is interlinked with every governing interest ; how 
it is interwoven with the crown and its dignity; with 
the landed and hereditary aristocracy and its supremacy; 
with the history and splendors and policy of every phase 
of English life since the Eighth Henry made it a political 
body and dependent on the State, it is difficult now to real- 
ize how near that great establishment is to its downfall. 
When this is once comprehended, it is easy also to see that 
like that of the blind Sampson in the temple, its destruc- 
tion will be followed by that of other long cherished insti- 
tutions. But what is not so easy of comprehension is to 
recognize how much of this swiftly approaching result is due 
to the energetic spirit of one man — Edward Miall — who 



EDWARD MIALL. 225 

has literally spent himself in the work of preparation. 
For several years he sat in the House of Commons as 
member for Bradford, Yorkshire, the principal centre of 
English woollen manufactures. Ill health prevented Mr. 
Miall from becoming a candidate at the last general 
election, and it is not probable that he will ever again en- 
deavor to secure a seat. Yet, he remains a distinct and 
positive force, to be counted upon in the sum of English 
Radical efforts. The author of ''Men and Manner in 
Parliament," speaking of those who have " Fallen from the 
Ranks," writes that " Mr. Miall is missed, though not for, 
the sake of his charms of oratory. To tell the truth, 
there were few speakers in the House more painful to listen 
to. His style was of the worst order of Dissenting preach- 
ing, and there was a specially painful vigor in the way he 
was wont to wrestle with himself for words — pumping them 
out one by one as if they came from a well in which the 
gearing had got out of order — that could not be excelled 
by any young student fresh to the conventicle from college, 
and desirous of impressing critical deacons with the 
amount .of wisdom which must underlie utterances so 
weightily deliberate. It is, however, probable that this 
mannerism, which had of late years grown upon him, was 
the outcome of that failing health and strength which 
finally resulted in his retirement from public life ; and it 
speaks eloquently for Mr. Miall's force of character that in 
spite of such personal disadvantages, and though known 
as the uncompromising advocate of principles peculiarly 
obnoxious to the majority of his fellow-members, he al- 
ways compelled the respectful attention of the House of 
Commons, and carried into his retirement the assurance 
10* 15 



2 26 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

that his absence would be regretted and his place not 
easily filled." * 

While this critic has overdrawn the disadvantages of 
Mr. MialPs method and manner as a speaker, there is no 
doubt that he is not gifted in that direction. The matter 
is more imposing than the manner, and his speeches are 
capital " campaign " documents, bristling as they do with 
facts, well presented, and clothed in that nervous and vig- 
orous English of which Mr. Miall is a master. As a con- 
troversial writer the editor of the Nonconformist is among 
the most influential and trenchant. A fair specimen of 
his nervous style may be found in the following extracts 
from a critical paragraph in relation to the Hon. W. E. 
Forster, written at the time of Mr. Gladstone's retirement 
from the leadership of the Liberal party. The article has 
significance in that it outlines Mr. Miall's views, and enters 
an objection to Mr. Forster's leadership, growing out of 
the famous debate on the Education Act of 1872, herein 
alluded to. 

" Mr. Forster's qualifications for leading the Liberal party in or- 
dinary times are pre-eminent. He is a rugged speaker ; but he can 
generally speak, and forcibly too, to the point. His industry is indom- 
itable. His political knowledge is extensive, and, within certain limits, 
varied. His political sympathies incline more steadily towards demo- 
cratic views than towards those which terminate in oligarchical rule. 
He is a favorite in the House, but more so among those who sit oppo- 
site to him than among those who sit behind him. He is candid, 
flexible, and courteous to his foes— less so, even in his Parliamentary 
speeches, to his friends. What he may be in the lobbies to the for- 
mer, we do not know. What he is to the latter, we cannot profess to 
admire ; he is not conciliatory, he is not attractive ; he has no healing or 
binding influence. * * * He would probably fitly and fully ex- 

* " Men and Manner in Parliament," p. 33. 



EDWARD MIALL. 227 

press the wishes of the party in relation to topics within a purely 
secular range. His views (unless we have mistaken them) are char- 
acterized by breadth, generosity, faith, and courage. But opinion — 
and, we may add, Parliamentary opinion — is approaching another and 
a much higher class of questions. Not even Mr. Forster can long 
postpone a consideration of ecclesiastical policy. How is he disposed 
to dea? with that huge and richly endowed monopoly which, while its 
very existence overrides every sentiment of justice, is rapidly tending 
in practice to give enormous development to sacerdotal assumptions ? 
We do not ask his opinion of disestablishment. * * * But in 
what direction will Mr. Forster be likely to lead the House ? * * * 
We believe he has very little spiritual sentiment — for he has avowed as 
much — and that his ecclesiastical outlook, if he has ever distinctly 
shaped it to his own mind, is predominantly Erastian, and would ulti- 
mately rest upon ' concurrent endowment.' Now, men deeply inter- 
ested in freeing religious institutions from State support and control, 
can take no active part in committing the leadership of the Liberals 
to a statesman so completely at variance with themselves upon what 
they regard as the most important political problem of the present age. 
They have no choice but to refuse binding themselves to an allegiance 
they could not conscientiously render." 

Mr. Miall is the leader of those in England who accept 
the voluntary method, who desire the entire disseverance of 
the State from all religious bodies, believing that under such 
conditions only can the broadest religious activity and 
progress prevail. They hold the same view with regard to 
the public schools, seeking the entire separation of all 
denominational influence from the elementary training, 
which they desire shall be had at the public expense. 

The struggle by which Mr. Miall and his friends are 
able to look from their Mount Pisgah, and into what they 
deem the Promised Land, is full of interest to the his- 
torical student. The statute books are not entirely free 
from provisions requiring and compelling the Christian 



2 28 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Dissenter to pay rates for the purpose of sustaining the 
Established Church and its priests. Not many years have 
elapsed since Lord Mansfield delivered a famous opinion 
bv which he declared " that non-conformity being no long- 
er a crime, the natural liberty of the Subject was in favor 
of the Dissenter." The passage of the Toleration Act, 
he said, " renders that which was illegal before, now legal ; 
the Dissenters' way of worship is permitted and allowed 
by this Act ; it is not only exempted from punishment, 
but rendered innocent and lawful ; it is established, it is 
put under the protection, and is not merely under the 
connivance of the law." Disabilities remained. The 
Dissenters' inability to take the form of oath required, 
prevented them from holding office, or, for a time, of sitting 
in Parliament, and until within a few years from being edu- 
cated in the State Universities. During the last fifty 
years or so, the more public spirited among them, especially 
the Quakers, maintained a passive resistance to the collec- 
tions of tithes, church rates, and Easter dues, just as at the 
present time they oppose the payment of rates and fees 
for school purposes, which are, it is charged, practically 
made denominational in character. In the old agitation, the 
more determined allowed their goods to be distrained 
rather than voluntarily pay such taxes. It became an un- 
derstood policy at the sale of such distrained goods, not 
to bid against the owner, and so the " church " got in gene- 
ral more scorn than profit. So odious became these seiz- 
ures, that Parliament slowly and at long intervals, passed 
acts compromising the rates in some way, and in a few in- 
stances abolished them altogether. 

The more recent and directly national and political 



EDWARD MIALL. 



229 



bearings of the issues relative to " Church and State," 
have, however, gathered around the active public life of 
Edward Miall. What some of these are in a more directly 
social and personal way, is stated by the British Quarterly 
in an article reviewing a debate in the House of Commons. 
It refers to Sir Roundell Palmer's defensive reply that the 
" Establishment no longer inflicts wrong on those who 
think it right to dissent ; " and says : " Whatever may be 
the case in the great centres of population, it is cer- 
tain that in the small towns, and especially in the rural 
districts," where it is asserted the Church is a great bless- 
ing, " petty persecution, aiming at the suppression of dis- 
sent, is as rife as when the Establishment would persecute 
by law. Is the dissenter a farmer ? He is kept by church 
landlords and landladies out of a whole district, as care- 
fully as the rinderpest itself. * # Is he a shop-keeper ? 
He must hold his head low, and consent to sell his princi- 
ples with his wares, or he loses half his custom. * # * 
Is he poor ? So much the worse for him, when coal, blank- 
ets and soap are distributed at Christmas; when paro- 
chial charities, intended to be unsectarian, are dispensed, 
or when misfortune makes him a fitting object for the help 
and sympathy of all his neighbors." " Nay," continues 
the reviewer, "he may be wholly independent" of all pe- 
cuniary considerations, equal in fortune, culture, grace, re- 
finement to the more fortunate, but he also " pays the 
penalty for conscientious non-conformity in the social ex- 
clusion and the haughty contempt " which makes English 
country life so hard to bear. # 

*." Mr. Miall's motion for Disestablishment," British Quarterly Re- 
view, July, 1871, p. 183. 



23O BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

The editor of the Nonconformist is a son of Moses 
and Sarah Miall, of Portsmouth, and was born in 1809. 
He is therefore in the sixty-sixth year of his age. Belong- 
ing to a family prominently identified with the congregation- 
al body, Edward, with two of his brothers, was educated 
for the ministry, at Wymondley, Hertfordshire, in a theo- 
logical institution founded by a Mr. Coward, and in after 
years consolidated with the new College, St. John's Wood, 
London. After his ordination he was called to Leicester, 
as the pastor of an Independent Chapel there. His in- 
duction into the ministry was at a time when England fer- 
mented with the Reform Law r and Emancipation agitations, 
and there naturally grew up a searching consideration of 
the relations of " Church and State," with the connections 
between "civil and religious liberty," which latter was 
then the shibboleth of the Whig party. From the ranks of 
the non-conforming sects in England has often come the 
impulse and movement which has led to great reforms. 
Divisions in their own midst, during the earliest years of 
Mr. MialPs ministerial life, as to the limits of agitation, 
and how they should allow themselves to participate 
therein, led him to a careful consideration of these ques- 
tions. The country Dissenters considered themselves in 
advance of those who lived in the metropolis and larger 
cities. Doubtless they were, for it is easy to understand 
that disabilities, legal and social, would be more percepti- 
bly annoying in localities where the "peer," "squire," and 
" rector " held almost undisputed sway. In the cities, 
clergymen and their principal laity constituted a society 
sufficiently large and cultured enough to relieve themselves 
from personal annoyance. Under the impulse given by 



EDWARD MIALL. 23 I 

the Reform Bill of 1837, the provincial Dissenters felt 
that they must organize. Several associations were in op- 
eration at this time, — one, the " Ecclesiastical Knowledge 
Society," undertaking the task of publishing all matter re- 
lating to legal disabilities and church oppressions. Another 
was known as "the Religious Freedom Society." Neither 
of these efforts was other than tentative in character, and 
they were aimed solely or principally at the redress of 
" practical grievances," such as a church-rate seizure, or 
any personal or social wrong-doing on the part of their 
politico-ecclesiastical opponents. 

It was this want of broad and logical basis and pur- 
pose to their movements that brought Edward Miall to 
the front, and created the Nonconformist newspaper, and 
the "Society for the Liberation of Religion from State 
patronage and control." Its original designation was that 
of " The British Anti-State-Church Association." This 
was found cumbersome and inexpressive — for it by no 
means embodied the principles on which the movement 
was founded. There were and are many advocates of 
"concurrent endowment" by the State of all religious 
worship, while Mr. Miall and his associates desire entire 
freedom from State aid or political control. The move- 
ment originated in the Midland and manufacturing coun- 
ties, and seems to have created some surprise elsewhere. 
The direction of this effort centered at Leicester, and 
through Mr. Miall was not there pre-eminent, it owed much 
of its early activity to his energy and zeal. It was de- 
termined to publish an organ, under the name it now 
bears — the Nonconfo?"mist. A writer in the Beehive, sketch- 
ing the life of its editor, says : — 



232 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

" The prominence subsequently given to the name, per- 
son, and labors of Mr. Miall in the matter, was, as some 
would have regarded it, a thing of .the merest fortuity ; but 
others are inclined, no doubt, to take a very different view. 
We believe we are but stating the simple fact when we re- 
late that he and his friend, the Rev. J. P. Mursell, came 
to town at the request of others to engage as the editor of 
the projected journal a gentleman of undoubted sympathy 
in their opinion and object, as well as of the highest emi- 
nence and of tried experience as a public writer. In this 
errand they did not succeed. ' As they returned, they were 
pacing together the railway platform at Rugby waiting for 
the Leicester train. Suddenly, as the circumstance is told, 
Mr. Mursell said to his companion, " you must do it your- 
self." The answer of Mr. Miall was to the effect that the 
idea was altogether new to him ; and it was easy to con- 
ceive much of what would immediately come to the lips of 
a man committed to the Christian ministry, settled to his 
mind as pastor of a ehurch, and with a rising family to be 
considered in any new movement he might be solicited to 
make. However, Mr. Mursell pressed his suggestion in a 
form sufficiently impressive to obtain from his friend a 
promise that he would not then put a final negative upon 
it, but would, before answering yes or no, give it that deep 
and serious consideration which such a proposal so urged 
demanded at his hands." 

Having undertaken the work, he left his active minis- 
terial labors, and has ever since devoted himself to the 
work he has since performed. How great the task, can only 
be fully understood by a thorough apprehension of the con- 
ditions by which it has been surrounded. The Established 



EDWARD MIALL. 233 

Church and its patronage has been, with remarkable saga- 
city, interwoven into every part of the political and social 
conditions that have governed England since the Reforma- 
tion. > It is enormously wealthy, its annual income being 
variously estimated at from sixty to ninety million dollars. 
The Episcopate is, politically speaking, an important por- 
tion of the system ; the two Archbishops and twenty-seven 
Bishops being practically appointed by the Crown. Nom- 
inally, they are elected by the diocesan clergy, but that is 
only a form, as the Queen sends to the Synod a letter or 
conge d'elire, naming the person selected. They are only 
required to ratify the nomination, and have not power to 
reject. There are 13,261 benefices in the Church, all of 
which are the subject of public or personal patronage. 
The congregations or communicants, as such, have no 
power of selection or right of choice, and the vestry is en- 
trusted only with civil functions ; care of buildings, collec- 
tion of rates and tithes, etc., as also certain powers over 
the parish in the way of assessing and disbursing money, 
providing for the poor, schools, etc. These latter func- 
tions have been curtailed of late years. The " rector," or 
" incumbent," becomes thereby possessed of certain privi- 
leges, landed and magisterial in many instances. The 
Crown holds a number of livings at its bestowal ; there 
are 4,521 in the gift of members of the House of Lords. 
The Bishops sit therein as "Peers Spiritual." Catholic 
patrons are required to transfer the gift of their livings to 
the Crown. A considerable number, nearly as many in 
fact as are in the gift of the Peers, are at the disposal of 
private gentlemen and ladies. The Universities and other 
institutions are also largely possessed of this patronage. 



234 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

It was no wonder then that Warburton should declare that 
the Church " has been of old the cradle and the throne of 
the younger nobility," or that Goldwin Smith speaks of it 
as " a mere bulwark of the oligarchy." Mr. Gladstone 
himself sounded the key-note to its downfall when he 
declared, in 1836, speaking in the House Of Commons, 
that — "A Church establishment is maintained for the 
sake of its doctrines, not of its members — they have no 
right whatever to an advantage over other subjects of the 
State." The eloquent churchman was defending the 
establishment, while in truth he gave the key-note for its 
assailants. The diversity of doctrines it shelters produces 
sub-divisions, almost as numerous as the articles of faith 
on which it is presumed to be founded. As the Dean of 
Canterbury acknowledges in a notable review of some 
" Nonconformist essays,"* — "The first step for an Anglican 
apologist must ever be the abandonment of logic. * * 
Any one of his arguments, which begin so fairly, will, if 
carried out, land him either in Rome or Geneva." He adds, 
however, that this is not to be regarded " as fatal to his 
position." It shares in that " the predicament with every- 
thing else that is English. There is not an institution 
in our realm that is logically defensible," — and he adds, 
with characteristic English pride, that every such institu- 
tion is now, or is in the course of being made, " the best 
that can be had under the circumstances." 

This, then, is the institution Edward Miall undertook to 
destroy. He has seen its kindred organization go down 
in Ireland, and now hears his Liberal associates pleading 
for time to prepare for a disendowment as well as dises- 

* The Contemporary Reviezv , August, 1870. 



EDWARD MI ALL. 235 

tablishment of this powerful and wealthy institution. A 
great many forces help just now to bring the ripening 
issue to a head. Ritualism within, dissent without, but 
more than either, the spirit of secular and scientific inquiry 
and activity, which instinctively rebels against sacerdotal 
assumptions, — these all tend to but one result. Avery influ- 
ential element at this time is the revolt of the agricultural 
laborers against the degraded poverty and condition in which 
they have heretofore been sunk. Out of the eleven or twelve 
millions claimed as communicants of the establishment, 
the farm laborers have always formed a large proportion. 
But more and more the lowlier and less prosperous sects 
have obtained a commanding control of this class, until 
now, under the. leadership of such teachers as Joseph Arch, 
William Ball and others, usually local preachers or ex- 
horters themselves, they are in the full tide of vigorous 
agitation. Men like Mr. Miall have with tongue and pen 
prepared the way, and are now skilfully binding up their 
sheaves and gathering the harvests. In the movement just 
alluded to, the established clergy have unwisely arrayed 
themselves,, as a rule, against the people. This mistaken 
policy is political suicide, as it has aroused other classes to 
a logical apprehension of the intimate sympathies that 
naturally result between State ecclesiasticism and the 
English landed oligarchy. 

Mr. Miall is a man of stoutish form, about the middle 
height, with dark hair, eyes and complexion, wears a full 
beard, and peers out with a keen but kindly look from 
behind his spectacles. He is a man very much esteemed 
for his social and personal qualities, as well as admired 
for his intellectual capacity and activity. Though he is a 



236 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

voluminous writer, only a few volumes of controversial mat- 
ter or of observations and descriptions made -on journeys 
taken for his health, constitute his published works outside 
the columns of the No7iconformist. 

Mr. Miall was first chosen for the House of Com- 
mons in 1855, and again, ten years later, as member for 
Bradford. His name had meanwhile several times been 
presented as a candidate, but without success. In Parlia- 
ment, his general course has been that of an advanced 
Liberal. During the American civil war, Mr. Miall and 
his paper were warm advocates of the Union cause. He 
has favored the increase of the franchise, vote by ballot, 
ameliorative and corrective laws for labor; sustains the 
demand for a redistribution of seats and the extension of 
the franchise to the counties, as well as the abolition of 
the rate paying qualifications. In the debates on public 
education Mr. Miall has been the leading opponent of all 
denominational control. The measure passed in 1872, 
under the management of the Hon. W. E. Forster, then 
Vice-President of the Privy Council, and Chairman of its 
Committee on Education, was bitterly opposed by Mr. 
Miall, who regarded certain clauses as strengthening 
Church or denominational control over the schools. The 
ministry were denounced as having led those he represented 
" through the Valley of Humiliation," and were warned 
that the effect would be felt at the polls. There is no 
doubt too that the dissatisfaction thus engendered aided in 
producing that reduction in the Liberal vote which enabled 
the Conservatives to regain power. Mr. Miall obtained 
two important Royal Commissions of Inquiry during his 
parliamentary career, one relating to education, and the 



EDWARD MI ALL. 237 

other calling for an account of clerical incomes and endow- 
ments. In the first report he made a suggestion, the 
adoption of which marked a distinct step in the growth of 
the educational system. That suggestion was to the effect 
that all grants for school purposes should be given only 
for improvements in the secular studies laid down by the 
" Minutes of Council," and over which inspection was 
maintained. 

On other or minor political matters Mr. Miall followed 
the leadership of Mr. Gladstone, at least up to the time 
of the passage of the Forster Education Act in 1872, when 
he practically took a position of entire independence. 
But it is of course on his advocacy of Disestablishment 
of the State Church that his reputation must rest. In 
1856, he first introduced a practical proposition for the 
abolition of the Irish State Church. The Liberal party 
had for many years been hostile to this oppressive institu- 
tion, but there was a wide divergence as to the means to 
be adopted. The question of disestablishment was first 
broached over forty years ago, by a motion of Mr. Faith- 
full, made in 1833. The subject was so unpopular that 
Lord Althorp declined to reply and moved the previous 
question. Mr. Miall's motion and speech, the latter espe- 
cially, received marked attention. Fourteen years later, 
(in 1868) Mr. Gladstone declared that " in the settlement 
of the Irish Church, that Church, as a State Church, must 
cease to exist." Mr. Miall witnessed that triumph, and on 
the 9th of May, 1871 rose to move the formal Disestab- 
tishment of the English State Church itself. It is evident 
that lie will not have to wait as long as he did in the case 
of its confrere, the Irish Episcopal Establishment. . The 



238 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

British Quarterly Review, the organ of the non-conformist 
party in politics and affairs, says of the debate and Mr. 
MialPs speech that preceded it, "a large house — a speech 
which the most competent critics in England have pro- 
nounced to be of the highest class — a seven hours debate 
sustained, for the most part, by members of the greatest 
mark — a weakness of argument and of tone on the part 
of the opponents of the motion which has excited general 
surprise — a division almost exactly tallying with the calcu- 
lations of those at whose instance it was taken — leading 
articles and correspondence on the subject in every jour- 
nal in the Kingdom, and an almost "universal impression 
that disestablishment is nearer at hand than it was thought 
to be before the motion was submitted — if these do not 
satisfy the most ardent of " Liberationists," the patience 
which has hitherto distinguished them must have given 
way to unreasoning haste." # 

Of their leader's efforts the same authority says : 
" If Mr. Miall has not acquired favor as a Parliamentary 
debater, he has made two speeches which will live in the 
political history of this half century." Of the latest, one 
of his supporters " happily said that it seemed to him as 
though it were the condensation of the thought of a life- 
time ; " " but in truth," continues the reviewer, " the speak- 
er had to disengage his mind from many thoughts which 
had for years engaged the highest powers of his intellect 
and the warmest sympathies of his heart. He had to re- 
member that he was standing, * # # on the floor of 
the House of Commons, and that he was addressing not 

* British Quarterly, July, 187 1, p. 98. 



EDWARD MIALL. 239 

the eagerly responsive readers of the Nonconformist, but 
the cold and critical readers of journals of a very differ 
ent type. And further, while avowing that the religious 
side of the question was that which most powerfully affected 
his own mind, and conscious that the most potent forces he 
could employ were those which derived their force from 
religious considerations, he had to leave that vantage 
ground, from the admitted unwillingness of the House of 
Commons to deal with the subject in its spiritual aspects, 
and to take the lower ground involved in objections of an 
exclusively political and social character. It required no 
small degree of self-restraint, and of practical skill, for a 
speaker of such antecedents as those of Mr. Miall to keep 
strictly within the lines which he had laid down for himself, 
and the unstinted admiration expressed by all the subse- 
quent speakers, and especially by public journals, which 
*' * * were little likely to be biassed in his favor, have 
shown conclusively the completeness of his success."* 

These encomiums are sustained by the later praise of 
a non-partisan writer already quoted. They are echoed by 
others. The writer before quoted from the Beehive's " Por- 
trait Gallery" closes a sketch of Mr. Miall by a reference to 
adverse criticism that was made in his own denomination, 
upon his leaving the pulpit for the editorial chair, and by 
declaring that time and his life work has amply justified 
the decision, adding that Mr. Miall has lived " to see 
others besides himself doing the same thing, and to hear 
them applauded for it. In fact it was a quondam preacher 
in the pulpit who coined and gave currency to the phrase 

* British Quarterly, p. 99. 



24O BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

of 'priesthood of the press.' All such objections have 
now passed away ■ and nearly every observer can perceive 
that the man who did and has done what it fell to Edward 
Miall's lot to do, required the ardent devotion of a Prophet, 
to say nothing of priesthood of any kind, to help him 
along and to carry him through. * * * Whether it 
will fall to Mr. Miall's share to reap the harvest for which 
he has so wisely sown and so well toiled, no man knows, 
as none, perhaps, less cares than he. Let some men, they 
may not- be many, be clear that they have done what they 
could, and they are content to leave the matter of reward 
in the unerring hands of Him who only knows how to ap- 
portion it, ' but to him that soweth righteousness, shall be 
a sure reward. 5 " # 

* The Beehive, London, Jan. 2, 1875. 



XV. 

Henry Richard. 




HAT portion of the Island of Great Britain 
which gives a title to the Heir Apparent to the 
British Crown, has not for a good many years 
been remarkable for devotion to the class system whereby 
the English Empire has been governed. The Welsh are, in 
the main, a working people ; small farmers, delvers in the 
mines, workers at the forge and furnace ; and they are a 
race with- very marked characteristics, preserving their old 
traditions and literature with a zeal which has in itself 
proved to be an education. These traits have lent to their 
politics a good, deal of intensity. The earlier chartist agi- 
tation found formidable materials among them for stormy 
demands. One movement, known as the Daughters of 
Rebecca, originating in an organized opposition to turn- 
pike tolls, which had become a grievous monopoly in the 
principality, became in the southern portion a serious 
political insurrection, at one time presenting a formidable 
ii 16 



242 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

aspect, and requiring a considerable force for its suppres- 
sion. Ordinarily, however, the Welsh are a quiet and very 
orderly people. The gentleman whose name heads this 
sketch is a representative man-— a genuine leader of the 
best Welsh elements, — and is beside, a man worthy of large 
recognition because of his worthy aims and character. He 
may be said to be not merely a member for the coal-mining 
and iron-forging constituency who have sent him to the 
House of Commons, but to be in fact a member for all 
Wales. 

-Henry Richard was born in 18 12, at Tregaran in Cardi- 
ganshire, and is the son of Rev. Ebenezer Richard, a minis- 
ter of the Calvinistic Methodist persuasion. His mother 
was Mary Williams, and both parents were of unmixed 
Welsh descent. The father, indeed, represented one of 
the oldest landed parishes in the region, and the son was 
carefully educated and became especially versed in all that 
related to the Principality itself. He had occasion to 
mingle much with the working people, and thereby ac- 
quired a wide knowledge of the great trades' union move- 
ments, their aims, hopes, and spirit. This experience, 
joined with hearty sympathy have secured for him the con- 
fidence of the constituency he represents, and have given 
him considerable influence in the House of Commons on 
the Labor questions which have formed so important a 
part of English Legislation. 

Mr. Richard married in 1866 Augusta Matilda Farley. 
He was for some years an " Independent " minister at 
Marlborough Chapel, Southwark, London. But his first 
public reputation was won as an advocate of popular edu- 
cation, and in defending his own people — the Welsh — 



HENRY RICHARD. 



243 



from what he regarded as false reports made by a govern- 
ment commission which was sent in 1846, to enquire into 
the state of education among them. Mr. Richard pre- 
pared and delivered an elaborate lecture, afterwards pub- 
lished in book form, as were also a series of letters print- 
ed later in the London Morning Star, — in both of 
which he replied and refuted the adverse criticisms. The 
effect of these publications were so marked that Gladstone 
took occasion to pay a tribute to Mr. Richard and the 
ability he displayed, when he addressed, in 1873, the Na- 
tional Eisteddfod, as the annual Welsh meetings are 
termed, which of late years have done so much to revive 
an interest in the ancient Welsh lore — the source of the 
Arthurian legends. Mr. Gladstone said in his opening 
speech : — 

" I will frankly own to you that I have shared, at a 
former time, and before I had acquainted myself with the 
subject, the prejudices which prevail, to some extent, with 
respect to W T ales, and I come here to tell you how and why 
I have changed my opinion. It is only fair that I should 
say that a countryman of yours, a most excellent Welsh- 
man, Mr. Richard, M. P., did a great deal to open my eyes 
to the true state of the facts by a series of letters which, 
some years ago, he addressed to a morning journal, and 
which he subsequently published in a small volume, which 
I recommend to all persons who may be interested in the 
subject." 

The title of this volume was " Social and Political 
Condition of the Principality of Wales." Mr. Richard 
has also published a life of Joseph Sturge, and an essay 
on "The Present and Future of India." The work to 



244 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

which Mr. Richard has more especially devoted his life 
has been the advocacy of peace, and the establishment of 
international arbitration as a substitute for war. In pur- 
suance of this work, he has travelled extensively, and his 
face is one well known in all the chief continental cities. 
The earlier efforts made by him were taken in conjunction 
with Elihu Burritt, as early as 1846, and resulted in the 
convening of a memorable series of Peace Congresses 
held from 1848 to 1852, at Brussels, Paris, Frankfort, 
London, Manchester and Edinburgh. The London Con- 
gress in 1850 will be remembered in the United States 
from the fact that it was attended by a number of the most 
prominent of our anti-slavery advocates — Garrison, Phil- 
lips, Tappan, Lucretia Mott and others — and in England 
by the interest that was aroused by the presence and elo- 
quence of the now venerable quaker lady. These gather- 
ings gave to the peace movement its first world-wide rec- 
ognition. They attracted public attention, and secured 
the pacific advocacy of Cobden, Bright, Lamartine, Ara- 
go, Humboldt, Liebig, Visschers, Suringar, Chevalier, Co- 
querel, Sir David Brewster, Varrautrap, Cormenin, Victor 
Hugo, Emile de Girardin, Beckwith, Gamier, and many 
others. 

The Diplomatic Congress of Paris, in 1856, at which 
the representatives of Great Britain, Russia, France, Sar- 
dinia and Turkey assembled to frame and ratify the treaty 
concluding the Crimean war, was marked by notable steps 
forward in the movement of which Mr. Richard is a fore- 
most champion. At that time that gentleman, accompanied 
by Joseph Sturge and Mr. Hindley, M. P., proceeded to 
Paris and obtained interviews with the Plenipotentiaries 



HENRY RICHARD. 245 

there assembled. " The views of Mr. Richard and his 
friends were on that occasion so heartily entered into 
by Lord Clarendon and his colleagues at the Confer- 
ence, that they, in consequence, embodied them in the cel- 
ebrated Protocol recommending States to have recourse, 
in cases of disputes, to the good offices of friendly Powers. 
Mr. Gladstone has pronounced this high sanction of pacific 
principles to be ' in itself a great triumph.' It has subse- 
quently been repeatedly acted upon by various countries, 
and especially by Great Britain and the United States, in 
reference to the Alabama difficulty, finally settled by arbi- 
trators nominated by other Powers." * 

It will be remembered that the Congress of the United 
States unanimously passed during the session of 1872-3 a 
resolution favoring the principle of international arbitra- 
tion. This action was part of the result obtained by Mr. 
Richard through his long-continued agitation. In July, 
1872, he carried a similar motion, after a notable speech 
on his part, followed by a vigorous debate, by a majority 
of ten on a total vote of 190, the number of members 
present. Since that date, besides the vote in the Ameri- 
can Congress, similar motions have been passed by the 
Legislative assemblies of Italy, Sweden and Belgium. 
The latest adherent to the policy is Holland. The lead- 
ing advocate of arbitration in the Netherlands Parliament, 
thus announced his success in a letter to Mr. Richard : — 

The Hague, Nov. 27, 1874. 
Dear Sir : — I have the satisfaction to inform you that this day, 
after two days of debate, we carried our motion on International Arbi- 

* The Beehive, March 13, 1875. 



246 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

tration (of which we gave notice on the 12th of October), by a major- 
ity of 35 against 30, in the second chamber of the States General of 
the Netherlands, 15 members being absent. 

It appears that some of our opponents made a political question 
of it. But a proposition to adjourn the discussion until a later day 
was rejected in favor of my counter-proposition to leave our motion 
to its own inherent merits, without any further defence from our side 
and to close all further discussion and vote at once. This proposal 
being adopted, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, whilst approving the 
principle of our motion, disputed its opportuneness, and doubted the 
advisability of a small country like ours accepting it and so taking an 
initiative so important. After his speech, the debate being closed, the 
motion was carried, as above stateu. 

I hope, dear sir, that although this success may not be a brilliant 
one, all our English friends of kindred mind with ours will rejoice in 
it, and that you, dear sir, in particular, will acknowledge that M. Von 
Eeck and myself have redeemed the pledge we gave you during your 
visit to this country, that we would do our best in this direction. I 
remain, dear sir, yours most truly, 

T. P. BREDINS, 

M. P. for Dordrecht. 

This movement was stimulated on the part of Mr. 
Richard by an extended Continental journey, undertaken 
shortly after his success in the British Parliament had been 
achieved. The biographer of the Beehive, already quoted, 
writes that Mr. Richard "visited Italy, France, Austria, 
Holland, and Belgium to secure interviews with influential 
members of their respective Legislatures, and obtained in 
various instances, promises of early action, of which the 
fulfilment in most cases has already proved the importance. 
During this journey Mr. Richard was welcomed by a con- 
tinuous series of ovations and banquets in the chief Con- 
tinental cities. Addresses of congratulation also poured 
in upon him from all quarters. One from Italy was 



HENRY RICHARD. 247 

signed by almost all the eminent men in that country, in- 
cluding General Garibaldi, the Presidents of the Senate 
and of the Chamber of Deputies, Signor Lanza, the ex- 
President of the Council of Ministers, and by a host of 
other leading Italians. But one of the most acceptable of 
these addresses was that from the working men of Venice, 
in which they testified their earnest gratitude to him for 
his pacific efforts, inasmuch as it is mainly upon the work- 
ing classes in every nation that the burdens of war fall. 
They furnish the ' food for cannon ' ; their wives and widows 
and orphans suffer most grievously from war ; whilst the 
titled and wealthy classes carry off the honors and spoils, 
but avoid most of the risks and privations. This represent- 
ative address has afforded a deep and peculiar satisfaction 
to Mr. Richard. For, in common with his friends and as- 
sociates throughout life, such as Richard Cobden, John 
Bright and Joseph Sturge, it has been his sincerest earthly 
ambition to render solid service to those classes of his 
countrymen who most need such help — the great and 
numerous ranks of the toiling millions who constitute such 
an important proportion of the population, that efforts for 
their benefit and elevation constitute the truest form of 
patriotism." 

Mr. Richard was elected for the Welsh borough of 
Merthyr, in November, 1868, and again in the subsequent 
elections. His opponents were Lord Aberdare (formerly 
Mr. Bruce, Home Secretary under the Premiership of Mr. 
Gladstone), and a Mr. Fothergill — both of them large 
land-owners and employers. Mr. Richard's votes, how- 
ever, were nearly double those polled by these rivals. The 
constituency he represents is emphatically a working one ; 



248 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

as the district of which Merthyr is the centre, is one of the 
heaviest coal and iron-mining and working portions of 
Great Britain. It has been within three years the seat of 
two great labor struggles, the first being a strike for higher 
wages, and the second a lock-out on the part of employers, 
in consequence of the refusal of the men to accept a re- 
duction. Over one hundred thousand men and boys were 
thrown out of employ for several months, the employers 
having raised a large fund and formed a close union in 
order to accomplish the result they desired, which was the 
breaking up of the Laborers' Combination by the process of 
starvation. The miners yielded, but yet the employers 
could not be accounted wholly successful. The extent of 
the lock-out was brought about by the determination to 
prevent the men of other districts from supporting the 
unionists in those places where the struggle was first in- 
augurated. Practically the iron workers supported the 
miners. The iron masters as well as the colliery-owners 
were induced to strike hands and close all the works, the 
employes of which, though in every way innocent except as 
to sympathy with the men originally involved, were thus 
compelled to suffer for many months. Not less than half 
a million persons were involved in the matter, and the dis- 
tress was very general. The Beehive, which is the recog- 
nized organ of the British Trades' Unions, wrote of Mr. 
Richard while the lock-out was in progress, that " many 
anxious days and weeks have been devoted by him to en- 
deavour to bring about a satisfactory solution of the diffi- 
culties involved ; and although his circumstances, as un- 
connected with the iron trade, or with any other branch of 
commerce, have placed him in a position of much disad- 



HENRY RICHARD. 249 

vantage and delicacy, when pleading with the masters on 
behalf of their men, he has not shrunk from repeated at- 
tempts in this direction. In January, 1875, the Associa- 
ted Employers of South Wales issued a document referring 
to one of Mr. Richard's communications, saying : — ' The 
Council of the Association of Colliery Owners have received 
and taken into their earnest consideration, a letter of the 
25th of December, written by Mr. Henry Richard, M. P., 
to the Chairman of the association.' The masters then 
explained in detail their reasons for arriving nevertheless 
at a conclusion adverse to Mr. Richard's wishes, and con- 
cluded by stating their decision : — ' No Board of Concili- 
ation, no method of arbitration, can either'remove the ex- 
isting distress, or qualify the necessity for a reduction of 
wages.' Hence the responsibility of the painful events 
which have taken place was entirely assumed by the em- 
ployers, whilst Mr. Richard has watched and seized every 
opportunity of advocating the cause of his distressed con- 
stituents." 

Shortly after his entrance into the House of Commons, 
Mr. Riehard made a speech which aroused much interest, 
exposing the political intimidation and other unlawful acts 
practised against their poorer tenants by many of the 
Welsh landlords. It had the effect also, of checking the 
abuses whereof he complained. During the debates 
on the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and on 
the question of National Education, Mr. Richard took bold 
and radical ground, urging the abolition of the State 
Church in England. 

The British Quarterly Review* in an article on Mr. 

*July, 1 87 1. 
II* 



25O BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

MiaH's motion on this subject, made on the 9th of May, 
187 1, speaks of Mr. Richard as supporting the motion in 
in a speech whose " facts and figures # * admirably 
supplemented Mr. Miall's exposition of principle ; while 
so far as the Principality is concerned, they demolished 
some of the boldest allegations of the advocates of the 
existing system." It refers to his having shown that Wales 
cannot be considered as part of the territory over which 
the 'establishment has shed the beneficiary influences 
which its defenders claimed for it during the debate under 
consideration." 

Mr. Richard has also urged the perfecting of a complete 
system of National and compulsory education. He is 
strongly opposed to all denominational supervision or in- 
terference, and resisted, with Mr. Miall and his friends, 
the bill of Hon. Wm. E. Forster, passed in 1872, which, it 
was charged, extended and even increased that influence. 
Mr. Richard made for himself a considerable reputation 
and influence, on the liberal benches, by bearding Mr. 
Disraeli, at the very first session, at which the Tory leader 
resumed power, in an attempt to repeal the obnoxious sec- 
tion of the last Education Act, and also by resisting a bill 
relative to endowed schools, which, though it commanded 
the united conservative vote and a majority therefore of 
the House of Commons, the Prime Minister felt obliged 
to withdraw. In this effort, Mr. Richard gained an unu- 
sual triumph, as a party man, in rallying to his support, 
such ex-ministerial Liberals as Bright, Lowe, Goschen, 
Coleridge, and others. His recent votes have been given 
for re-distribution of seats, the agricultural laborers' fran- 
chise and other propositions. 



HENRY RICHARD. 



251 



" The Member for Wales," as he is sometimes called, 
is a handsome, and genial gentleman, well educated, and 
with the ease of a thorough man of the world. He has 
traveled much, has mingled with the leading men of other 
lands, is a fluent and ready speaker ; well informed and 
^conscientious writer and debater, and more than all, a man 
of kindly heart, quick sympathies and a strong and vigor- 
ous intellect. 



PART IV. 
POPULAR LEADERS. 



XVI. 

George Jacob Holyoake. 




JUNE day in 1867 witnessed a remarkable 
meeting in the town of Rochdale, Lancashire. 
This is the home of John Bright, but it will be 
much longer remembered as the scene of a fruitful exper- 
iment begun twenty-three years before the day on which 
the town was agitated so pleasantly. The cause of this 
excitement was the opening and dedication of the finest 
business building in the borough — one of the finest in the 
county — for the use of the famous Co-operative Society 
known world-wide as " The Rochdale Equitable Pioneers." 
The building stands at the head of Toad Lane, the nar- 
row hilly street in which the co-operators first opened a 
store. At this dedication ceremony and banquet, with a 
subsequent public meeting in the evening, were present 
gentlemen like Thomas Hughes and Walter Morrison, 
both members of Parliament, Vansittart Neale, William 
Pare, and others whose services and sympathies have made 
their names widely known. But in that gathering, either 
at banquet or meeting — the latter being presided over by 



256 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

the Mayor — there was no guest more honored than the 
gentleman whose name is at the head of this sketch — 
George Jacob Holyoake. 

A conspicuous figure in English affairs, social and po- 
litical, for now nearly forty years, he has been the founder 
and organizer of one most notable movement, and the ad- 
vocate and historian of another still more remarkable. 
Mr. Holyoake's double title to fame, as the founder of 
the " Gospel of Secular life " (the Rev. Mr. Molesworth 
in his later English history has so designated the " Secular- 
ist" movement) and the historian of " Co-operation," must 
give him no slight hold upon the esteem of his times and 
the respect of the future. He has won from the bitterest 
of his opponents a large measure of admiration and con- 
fidence. Into his fifty-eight years of life have been crowded 
the labors of a century in agitation and literary work. A 
man of notable appearance, above the middle height, 
slender of frame, he impresses one as being wiry rather 
than strong, nervous and spare, with a striking head and 
face. His features are sharp cut and marked with rather 
thin nostrils and mobile mouth, indicating a capacity for 
sarcastic speech, which is not belied by the facts. Mr. 
Holyoake wears a beard and mustache, which become 
the artistic and well poised head. The dark hair, now 
gray, is brushed back of his ears, revealing a long head, 
the larger part, of which is set well forward, with a strong, 
though not broad forehead. The general intellectual ex- 
pression is one of thoughtful acuteness. Individuality is 
evident in every expression, from the sharp high-keyed 
voice, the keen eyes looking out humorously from under 
heavy lids and brows, and the slight nervous but 



GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 257 

characteristic gestures which accompany his speech. He 
is a man of wit as well as knowledge. Radical though he 
has always been, and that on topics that have usually 
ostracized their advocates in English society, his social 
tact has enabled him to conquer personal prejudices, so 
that there is scarcely a public man more welcomed by all 
with whom his work brings him in contact — no matter to 
what class they may belong. 

The men of Birmingham have been termed the Yankees 
of England, and there is something in the nervous tem- 
perament and expression of Mr. Holyoake, which recalls 
the best New England type. He was born in that town 
in 18 1 7. The family from which he is descended were 
once well known armorers, and in days gone by, possessed 
a valuable freehold, but none of it descended to the branch 
of which Mr. Holyoake is a member. Work was his only 
inheritance. He is accustomed to say " he was born with 
steel and books in his blood." His father was a famous 
worker at the forge, and his mother inherited and con- 
ducted a small button-making business — the old fashioned 
horn button with copper shank. Both parents were per- 
sons of more than ordinary intelligence. At six years of 
age, the future agitator and journalist began work in his 
mother's shop, which was continued several years, until the 
introduction of machinery broke up the business. It was 
an occupation which gave employment then to a large 
number, and conducted as it was by persons with small 
capital, it was mostly carried on at home. George and his 
brother Austin (who died during the past year) were kept 
busy at school and shop. The elder brother was afterwards 
employed at a tin-plate factory. When Mr. Holyoake was 

i7 



258 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

twelve years of age, and from that time until he was 
twenty-two, he worked at the Eagle Foundry, where his 
father had been foreman of the whitesmiths for forty years. 
The son bore the reputation of^Deing a good workman. 
He has often declared that he could resume with success 
either of the trades he learned when a youth, not having 
forgotten his skill therein. He gave early evidence of his 
ability, having invented several machines before arriving 
at manhood, arid laboring steadily to qualify himself for 
the profession of civil engineer. The Mechanics' Insti- 
tute and the workshop were his college, and the thorough- 
ness of his preparation is evinced by the character of the 
works on educational matters he has since written. Among 
them are " Mathematics no Mystery," " Practical Gram- 
mar," " Logic of Facts," " Public Speaking and Debate." 
Of this latter, so competent an authority as Wendell 
Phillips has spoken in high terms. In furtherance of his 
intention to pursue the profession of civil engineering, 
Mr. Holyoake's name was placed, through the interven- 
tion of Mr. Lloyd, a magistrate of Birmingham, upon the 
staff of George Stephenson, then in the earlier years of 
his memorable career. Circumstances, however, led the 
young workman away from this design, and enlisted him 
in the discussion caused by Robert Owen's doctrines and 
plans. 

Mrs. Holyoake, the mother of our keen-witted youth, 
was a woman of strong religious convictions, and her sons' 
were steady attendants on the Baptist Sabbath Schools. 
The founder of the Secularists and Editor of the Reasoner 
became a teacher himself in the religious society where 
his mother worshiooed. But other influences were at work. 



GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 259 

The Mechanics' Institute of Birmingham was the resort 
of many young men who have since become known in 
public affairs. In 1837, Mr. Holyoake, then twenty years 
of age, heard Robert Owen lecture for the first time. He 
almost immediately identified himself with the new move- 
ment, and before he was twenty-three he was appointed 
one of the "Social Missionaries," as the lecturers on Mr. 
Owen's Social Science were termed. Before this period, 
however, he had tried himself in public, by teaching and 
lecturing in the Mechanics' Institute, of which he for a 
time acted as Superintendent. His activity was not con- 
fined to social studies and self-improvement, but early took 
the political bent it has since followed. He was a mem- 
ber of the famous " Birmingham Political Union," from 
which sprung the Chartist movement, and which has thus 
exercised a decided influence on English opinion. William 
Pare, for many years its Town Clerk and one of the most 
respected citizens, was, next to Mr. Owen himself, the fore- 
most champion of the captivating social philosophy of the 
founder of New Lanark. Mr. Holyoake came next. Like 
Mr. Pare, who died within the last two years, he has never 
deserted his first standard. Apparently, amid all the 
more exciting discussions and contests in which he has 
been engaged or led, it is co-operation and the hopes it 
holds out of social regeneration, that have commanded his 
heartiest exertions and maintained the strongest sway 
over his mind. 

The social condition about him — he was born and 
reared in the very center of English factory life, being of 
it and in it — was such as to attract his deepest sympathies 
and arouse his most earnest activity. In his very inter- 



26o BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

esting history of " Co-operation in Rochdale," he gives a 
graphic picture of the ".state of trade," and " agitation," 
at the time the association of " Equitable Pioneers " was 
formed. 

The flannel weavers of Rochdale " who were," he 
says, " and are still, a badly paid class of laborers, took it 
into their heads to ask for an advance of wages." This 
was near the close of 1843. Mr. Holyoake describes how 
some employers, more liberal than the others, made an ex- 
perimental advance — the wages to be reduced if others 
did not come up to the standard. This did not work and 
a " strike " was determined upon. A trades' union depu- 
tation was a dangerous business then, — for the men who 
were made members of it. After the excitement was over, 
these leaders found it impossible, as a rule, to obtain 
work, and were generally compelled to emigrate or seek 
other occupations. This was the state of affairs which the 
flannel weavers, had to contemplate. However, a strike 
was determined upon. The result was, not an advance of 
wages, but the " Equitable Pioneers," which a few of the 
wiser men started as a means of helping themselves and 
their class in the straits to which they were reduced. Mr. 
Holyoake tells this preliminary skirmish so well and it has 
to do with so much of his own life-work, that it is not in- 
propriate to give a portion of the story in his own lan- 
guage, especially as it is a good illustration of his literary 
style. 

" At this period the views of Mr. Robert Owen, which 
had often been advocated in Rochdale, recurred to the 
weavers. Socialist advocates, whatever faults they else 
might have, had at least done one service to the em- 



GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 26 I 

ployers — they had taught workmen to reason upon their 
condition — they had shown that commerce was a system, 
and that masters were slaves of it as well as the men. 

# # s # ^nd if t ] ie men became masters to-morrow, 
they would be found doing pretty much as masters now do. 

# * The socialism of this period marked the time when 
industrial agitation first took to reasoning. " He quotes 
Ebenezer Elliott's epigram to deny that such societies 
ever found place in England. 



' ' What is a Communist ? One who hath yearnings 

For equal division of unequal earnings ; 

Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing 

To fork out his penny, and pocket your shilling.' 



" The English working class have no weakness in the 
way of idleness ; they never become dangerous until they 
have nothing to do. Their revolutionary cry is always 
1 more work/ 1 They never ask for bread half so eagerly 
as they ask for employment. Communists in England 
were never either ' idlers or bunglers.' When the Bishop 
of Exeter, # * troubled Parliament, in 1840, with a 
motion for the suppression of Socialism, and an inquiry 
was sent to the police authorities of the principal towns 
as to the character of the persons holding those opinions, 
(the same who built in Manchester the Hall of Science, 
now the Free Library, at an expense of £6000 or ^7000,) 
the answer was that these persons consisted of the most 
skilled, well conducted and intelligent of the working 
class. Sir Charles Shaw sent to the Manchester Social 
Institution for some one to call upon him, that he might 



262 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

make inquiries relative to special proceedings. Mr. Lloyd 
Jones went to him, and Sir Charles Shaw said that, when 
he took office as the superintendent of the police of that 
district, he gave orders that the religious profession of 
every individual taken to the station-house should be noted ; 
and he had had prisoners of all religious denominations, but 
never one Socialist. Sir C. Shaw said also, that he was 
in the habit of purchasing all the publications of the 
Society, and he was convinced, that if they had not in- 
fluenced the public mind very materially, the outbreaks at 
the time, when they wanted to introduce the general ' holi- 
day,' would have been much worse than they were, and he 
was quite willing to state that before the government, if he 
should be called upon to give an opinion. 

"The followers of Mr. Owen were never the 'idlers/ 
but the philanthropic. They might be dreamers, but they 
were not knaves. They protested against competition as 
leading to immorality. Their objections to it were theor- 
etically acquired. They were none of them afraid of com- 
petition, for out of the Socialists of 1840 have proceeded 
the most enterprising emigrants, and the most 
spirited men of business who have risen from the 
working classes. The world is dotted with them at the 
present hour, and the history of the Rochdale Pioneers is 
another proof that they were not ' bunglers.' No popular 
movement in England ever produced so many persons able 
to take care of themselves as the agitation of Social Reform. 
Moreover, the pages of the New Moral World and the 
Northern Star of this period amply testify that the Social 
Reformers were opposed to ' strikes,' as an untutored and 
often frantic method of industrial rectification ; as wanting 



GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 26 







foresight, calculation, and fitness ; as an irritation, a waste 
of money and temper. And when a strike led, as they 
often have done, to workmen coercing their comrades, and 
forcibly preventing those who were willing to work at the 
objectionable rate, from doing so, the strike became an 
injustice and a tyranny, vexatious, disreputable, and inde- 
fensible." * 

It was of the class thus described by Mr. Holyoake 
that the Rochdale co-operation movement sprung. The 
same sort of men and women were assembled, 7000 strong, 
at the celebration mentioned in the opening of this sketch. 
These men were the sturdiest supporters of the union cause 
in England, and their co-operative funds, and those of so- 
cieties that had sprung from their example, were the savings 
banks that kept them and their families from pauperism 
during the weary two years of the cotton famine. 

Mr. Holyoake's own life diverged just before the time 
the Rochdale movement was first under way, from the gen- 
eral course and causes he had been advocating, into other 
and quite as marked channels. He had drifted early into 
Unitarianism ; later becoming a Theist — a position to 
which he is perhaps nearer still than any other, religiously 
speaking. He was at any rate a moderate Freethinker ; 
not specially pronounced in the ranks. He was moreover 
an active Chartist speaker. A writer in the Beehive, sketch- 
ing the lives of prominent co-operators, says : — 

" It was lecturing to the Chartists in their room in Chel- 
tenham "On Home Colonization," in 1841, that led to his 
imprisonment in Gloucester Gaol. A question was put to 

* " History of the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers," Part I., pp. 7, S. 
Tiirbner & Co. 



264 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

him as to his theological opinions ; his rule was never to 
introduce them into his lectures and other subjects, and it 
was because he had not introduced them that - the question 
was put to him. Usually Mr. Holyoake refused to answer 
such questions, as being irrelevant and impertinent, but at 
that time a case had occurred in the town which led the 
public to believe that social advocates were timorous of 
avowing their opinions. Resolved that this should not be 
said of him, Mr. Holyoake answered the question directly 
and explicitly, and was ultimately tried at the Gloucester 
Assizes for the answer he gave." Mr. Justice Erskine, who 
tried him, admitted it was an honest answer, and gave him 
six months' imprisonment as an encouragement to youth- 
ful candor. Mr. Bransby Cooper, brother of Sir Astley 
the chief magistrate of the county, visited the gaol before 
the trial and told Mr. Holyoake that he would not be al- 
lowed to speak in his own defence in court. Mr. Holy- 
oake said in that case he would try, and he spoke nine 
hours, fifteen minutes. Being satisfied towards evening 
that the court was hearing him, he concluded his defence 
at half-past nine at night. Mr. Knight Hunt, who became 
editor of the Daily News on the retirement of Mr. Charles 
Dickens, personally reported the trial in full,"* 

The question addressed to Mr. Holyoake was as to his 
belief in the truth of some quoted portion of the Bible, and 
his reply was in other words from the same volume, not 
usually used in such a manner. He was tried under an 
old law, on a charge of blasphemy — and his trial and con- 
viction was the last one of the kind in Great Britain. Mr. 

* London Beehive, June 5, 1875. 



GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 265 

Holyoake in his "subsequent organization of the society of 
Secularists, an account of whose aims may be found in the 
sketch of Charles Bradlaugh, did not mean, as he has re- 
peatedly since avowed, to organize Atheism or Theism into 
a sect, but rather to find a common band of association by 
which those who believed in the right of free inquiry could 
be socially protected by the creation of an organized pub- 
lic sentiment strong enough to ensure respect. Its plat- 
form was so drawn that no one need be excluded. The 
Gospel of Common Life — the daily duty of an every-day 
world was announced to be its aim. The future was to be 
left to itself. Mr. Holyoake delivered a remarkable lec- 
ture about these days, on the " Organization of Ideas — ■ 
not Arms," which dealt with the views already indicated- 
He included the idea that there was a secular side as well 
as a religious part to every moral issue, and that there should 
be perfect harmony among all parties in working for that 
side, irrespective of theological views. 

During the ten or twelve years following his incarcera- 
tion in Gloucester Jail, Mr. Holyoake was actively em- 
ployed- as a lecturer on co-operative topics, and in or- 
ganizing and lecturing to Secular Societies. His labors 
were chiefly confined to the manufacturing districts, 
though in 1847, or '48 he took up his residence in London 
where he still lives. He was for several years editor of 
the New Moral World, the organ of co-operation as repre- 
sented by Robert Owen. He then commenced the publi- 
cation of the Reasoner, which was continued for about 
fifteen years, thirty volumes being published in all. It 
numbered among its contributors Prof. Francis A. New- 
man, William J. Linton, Joseph Mazzini, and other dis- 



266 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

tinguished persons. He was also editor with Mr. Linton 
of a Chartist publication, "The Cause of the People," 
and assisted in the editorship of the- famous Leader, for 
which he wrote regularly over the signature of "Ion." He 
has also edited the " Spirit of the Age" the " British Leader' 
and the " Social Economist" — the latter in conjunction with 
Mr. E. O. Greening. As a contributor to the press and 
in general literary work his labors have been immense. 
He was for several years, and probably still is, connected 
with the Daily News, besides being the London corres- 
pondent of The Newcastle Chronicle, #and Birmingham 
Post among provincial papers, and a frequent correspond- 
ent of the New York Tribune. Mr. Greeley was greatly 
attached to Mr. Holyoake, and the latter dedicated his 
" History of Co-operation in Halifax " to the eminent 
editor. His connection with American affairs has been 
quite intimate, though he has never visited the United 
States. The Beehive writer already quoted, sketching his 
services to the co-operative cause, says: "Being one of 
those who in 1842 and 1843 visited Rochdale as a lecturer, 
he encouraged the recommencement of the co-operation 
in that town, and wrote many years later the history of the 
famous store which began there in 1844, a history which 
has been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Rus- 
sian, and circulated or reprinted both in India, America, 
and Australia. Mr. Holyoake never stipulated or received 
any advantage from the copyrights of his works, his idea 
simply being to advance the objects they represented. * * 
At many of the meetings of the Association for Promo- 
ting Social Science, Mr. Holyoake has read papers illus- 
trative of co-operative principles and progress. He has 



GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 267 

edited several of the reports of the annual co-operative con- 
gresses, and has contributed to the Co-operative News, be- 
sides publishing numerous small pamphlets, as new meth- 
ods K)f co-operative development seemed to require discus- 
sion." In the introduction to the Report of the Congress 
of 1872, Mr. Holyoake thus pleasantly speaks of the gen- 
eral condition of his favorite movement at that date. The 
paragraph gives a clear view of its progress and has there- 
fore merit besides what it gains from the cheery way in 
which it is put. He says : — 

" The Italians h^ve a proverb, wonderful in its sagacity for that 
quick-witted people ; it is this : ' Those who go slowly go far/ Then 
Co-operation may be expected to go far, for it had the courage to go 
very slowly and to keep on going. And it has gone both slow and far. 
It has issued like the tortoise from its Lancashire home in England; it 
has traversed France ; it has overrun Germany ; it has crept under the 
frozen steppes of Russia ; the bright-minded Bengalese is applying it ; 
the soon-seeing and far-seeing American is turning over the idea ; and 
our own emigrant countrymen in Australia are endeavoring to natural- 
ize it there. Clearly Co-operation has become what the Times used to 
call an 'established fact' Like Liebig's new essence of beef, or a 
good chronometer, Co-operation is unaffected by change of climate. 
It remains fresh and wholesome and goes well ; and we may say more, 
looking at its progress now, it goes fast as well as far." 

While writing for the Leader in 1852 Mr. Holyoake's 
criticism of the Abolition movement here and the policy 
of Mr. Garrison excited sharp discussion, and brought 
from Wendell Phillips one of the most masterly orations 
of his Anti-slavery life. It was made in the Boston Melo- 
deon, January 27, 1853, and is published in a volume of 
collected speeches, under the title of " Philosophy of the 
Abolition movement." The gist of Mr. Holyoake's criti- 
cism is in this paragraph, which follows a partial quota- 



268 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

tion of Garrison's famous declaration, that " I am in earn- 
est, — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not 
retreat a single inch — and I will be. heard." "Ion" 
wrote — " This is a defence which has been generally ac- 
cepted this side of the Atlantic, and many are the aboli- 
tionists among us whom it has encouraged in honesty and 
impotence, and whom it converted into conscientious 
hindrances. We would have Mr. Garrison to say ' I will 
be as harsh as progress, as uncompromising as success? If 
a man speak for his own gratification, he may be as harsh 
as he pleases ; but if he speaks for the down-trodden and 
oppressed, he must be content to put a curb upon the 
tongue of holiest passion, and speak only as harshly as is 
compatible with the amelioration of the evil he proposes 
to redress." 

The writer's own philosophy of agitation could not be 
expressed in terser or more appropriate words than are 
embraced in the last sentence. His life and methods are 
the evidences of his adherence to the view thus expressed. 
It brought upon him, however, not only the sweeping 
splendors of Mr. Phillips' reply, but bitter criticism among 
friends and whilom associates at home. One of them 
wrote in reply to " Ion " a harsh review, closing with this 
caustic personal attack : " We have spoken harshly ; but 
not more harshly than seemed good, nor without truth. * * 
In an age whose great evil is the absence of faith, he 
sets himself to undermine the very ground of faith ; in 
a time of narrow sects and exclusive individualisms, which 
prevent all combination for the sake of progress, he 
preaches atheism, which is the justification of selfishness. 
* * .* It may be harsh to say of him that he is an ill-con- 



GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 269 

ditioned cross between the Atheist and the Jesuit, an ob- 
sequious seeker of success; that we doubt his sincerity 
and bid men beware his guidance. It is harsh as truth."* 

It is the old difference of methods. No truer and 
braver life has ever been spent in the service of man,*than 
that of him who penned this severe judgment. Artist, 
poet, defender and servant of liberty ; the writer thereof 
had, like Garrison, no choice in his temperament or heart, 
for any words that did not express the whole of the truth 
as he saw it. Yet the same hand writes recently, that 
without Holyoake's efforts much of what has been achieved 
in England, in free thought and broader fields of work would 
have been impossible. There will always be those who, 
like George Jacob Holyoake, will counsel a wise modera- 
tion. These things are a matter of temperament as well 
as of conviction, and results will always be appealed to as 
vindicating both views. 

There is no radical question or reform movement oc- 
curring in England for the long period of Mr. Holyoake's 
active life, in which he has failed to take a prominent part, 
and to do good service, often the very best, by pen and 
tongue. After his removal to London, he and his brother 
Austin, were associated together in a publishing house, 
which issued the Reasoner, and also many books and pam- 
phlets that otherwise might not have found publication. 
This business house became the head-quarters of many 
movements, Mr. Holyoake's personal and social qualities, 
as well as his ability as an organizer of agitation, bringing him 
into constant demand. It was here that were held the ses- 

* " The English Republic," Vol. L, March, 1853. 



27O BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

sions of the Anti-Conspiracy Committee formed to resist 
certain legislation proposed by Lord Palmerston. Before 
the Orsini attempt on the life of Louis Napoleon was 
made, England had always accorded the right of refuge to 
political offenders from other countries. After the Orsini 
plot, a great outcry was made in France against this policy. 
The demand made by the Imperial Government, though 
not as dictatorial in form, was in substance very much like 
that more recently made by the German Chancellor against 
the Belgian Government in the matter of an alleged ultra- 
montane plot against Prince Bismarck. The French de- 
mand was aimed at the French exiles in the Channel 
Islands, and especially at Mazzini, whose extradition 
from London at the time and subsequently would have 
been regarded as a great triumph. The Italian Revolu- 
tionist was accused of participation in the attempted 
assassination or regicide. Those who knew him most in- 
timately and possessed his confidence, emphatically deny 
this. The French exiles living in the Island of Jersey, 
Victor Hugo, Felix Pyat, since known as a communist 
leader, and others, were set upon by mobs ; the inmates of 
Hauteville only escaping through the respect that even 
sycophancy could not help according to genius. George 
Julian Harney, now residing in Boston, but at the time 
editing a liberal newspaper in Jersey, was the only English- 
man there brave enough to resist the tide of excitement. 
The committee of which Mr. Holyoake was secretary, and 
which met in his house, was composed of and sustained by 
som.e of the strongest men in England. Lord Palmerston's 
bill was defeated and with it, his ministry was overthrown. 
Mr. Holyoake was also the acting secretary of the Gari- 



GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 27 I 

baldi Committee, by which the famous British Legion was 
organized and sent to the Italian Liberator. The officer 
in charge of that movement was an American brother of a 
distinguished admiral in our navy. 

From the Beehive sketch, already referred to, the fol- 
lowing personal facts are taken : 

"When no one else could be found to publish the 
special unstamped newspapers, during the final agitation 
for repealing the taxes on knowledge, Mr. Holyoake un- 
dertook to do so, under the direction of Mr. C. D. Col- 
let, the masterly secretary of that movement. The publi- 
cation of the War Chro7iides, devised during the Crimean 
war, involved Mr. Holyoake in fines of more than ,£"600,000, 
which when called upon in the Court of Exchequer to 
pay, he was under the necessity of asking the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer to take weekly, not having the amount 
by him. The last warrant issued before the repeal of the 
acts was against Mr. Holyoake. In this matter, as all 
others in which he was concerned, Mr. Holyoake followed 
the rule of never putting himself forward to do the thing- 
in hand ; but, if no one else would do it, and it ought to 
be done, he did it. 

" Mr. Holyoake's opinions have several times been 
quoted in Parliamentary debates. Under the encourage- 
ment of the late Mr. J. S. Mill, Mr. Holyoake became a 
candidate for the Tower Hamlets, in 1864,. but ultimately 
resigned in favour of Mr. Ayrton. At the election before 
the last (1868) Mr. Holyoake addressed the electors of 
Birmingham, desiring if a working-class candidate was 
chosen, to represent his own town. 

" Several public discussions, considered to have been 



272 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

of influence in their day, have been held by Mr. Holyoake. 
Observing that reports had for many years been published 
by the Government on the state of commerce and manu- 
factures abroad, for the use of "merchants and manufac- 
turers, Mr. Holyoake at length succeeded in inducing the 
Foreign Office, in the days of Lord Clarendon, to issue 
similar reports for the use of working men, from every 
country abroad where her Majesty had secretaries of em- 
bassy and legation. 

" The plan of these reports was devised and furnished 
by Mr. Holyoake. They state what the purchasing power 
of money is in foreign countries compared with England, 
so that a workman may know, if he earns $2 per week at 
home or $4 a week abroad, whether he will be better or 
worse off ; what the state of the labor market is in foreign 
countries ; how workmen are hired and housed there ; what 
kind of habitations they would have to occupy ; what dif- 
ficulty his family must have to exist in health ; what pro- 
vision as to clothing they must make ; what is the charac- 
ter of workmen in countries abroad ; were they good crafts- 
men ; did they take pride in their work, and put their 
character into it ? Such questions were never before put 
and never before answered ; and no books are more curi- 
ous and valuable to working men than these publications 
of the Foreign Office. Lord Clarendon always said in the 
handsomest manner in his despatches that these reports 
were issued on the suggestion of Mr. Holyoake. After 
endeavours extending over twenty years, he mainly pro- 
cured the passing of the Secular Affirmation Act, by which 
co-operative property was largely secured ; many of the 
most influential managers objecting, like Mr. Holyoake, to 



GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. 273 

take the ordinary oath, not being able to do so in the sense 
required by the court." 

Since the discontinuance of the Reasoner, Mr. Hol- 
yoake's time has been almost entirely occupied with co- 
operative work, and his journalistic labors. He has 
written extensively, and for several years past has been en- 
gaged on a " History of Co-operation," the first volume of 
which has recently been published by Triibner & Co. This 
work he regards as his magnum opus, and justly so. He 
reviews the curious out-of-the-way facts that belong to the 
pioneer period of the English movement, from 1812 to 1844, 
— now almost entirely forgotten. More than that, Mr. Hoi 
yoake's first volume is a decided contribution to the His- 
tory of social science and civilization, as he links the pres- 
ent great practical efforts with the various preceding 
socialist schools and their leaders, bringing continuously 
before his readers the relations which they occupy to one 
another, and the points of difference as well as of simi- 
larity in their systems. It is full of scholarly information 
and " thumb-nail " sketches, so to speak, of men of the 
past fifty years, who have in their day and generation, been 
marked characters. No man can do such work better 
than Mr. Holyoake. Besides his pleasant graphic style, 
witty way, and thorough acquaintance with his themes, he 
can say with the pious ^Eneas — " all which I saw, and part 
of which I was." 

Mr. Holyoake was married early in life. He has been 
a widower for several years. His two sons are both able 
men — one is an engraver of repute and the other is known 
in connection with art matters, as a good writer and critic, 
and also as an excellent restorer of pictures, by a process 

12* 18 



2 74 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

of his own invention. Mr. Holyoake has recently had 
two severe attacks of illness, one of which threatened his 
eye-sight so seriously that he has not yet recovered from 
its effects. His life has been sd^busily occupied in service 
to others, that the pleasant testimonial which his friends 
have been raising in his -behalf will not be ungrateful or 
come before it is needed. A considerable amount has been 
collected. Among other sums was five thousand dollars 
raised by English weavers employed at Fall River, Mass. 
This fact speaks well for the esteem in which Mr. Hol- 
yoake is held by the class from which he sprung. There 
is now every hope that there will be years of useful literary 
life before him, if not of active agitation. He has long 
meditated a journey to the United States, and it is 
probable that he will carry this out soon after he is able to 
travel. 



XVII. 



Joseph Arch. 




HIS was a middle-aged strong-set man, with a 
powerful honest face and a powerful honest voice. 
He spoke with a slight country accent that was 
not disagreeable ; on the contrary it seemed to give point 
and character to his sentences, as they came forth slowly 
and thoughtfully, true to their mark. It seemed to some of 
those who listened that it was not one man that was speak- 
ing ; it was the voice of a whole generation of men and 
women who were telling the manner of their daily lives 
and of their daily wants. He spoke not very bitterly, but 
clearly and to the point ; " it was evident too that he had 
" lived through it all himself and had felt hunger and biting 
cold, and seen his little children suffer," and while he was 
speaking " a sense of wrong had come to some of the poor 
fellows for the first time.''' 

In these words Miss Thackeray, in one of her charming 
minor stories, sketches under the name of Budge the 
man who is now recognised as among the most notable 



276 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

public characters in Great Britain. Joseph Arch is indeed 
gifted with an honest face and voice, while animating both 
is a purpose so human, and so sincerely expressed, that it 
has made the almost unlettered peasant and humble hedge- 
side preacher capable of moulding the lowly and moving 
the gifted, into the servants of his mission. He is a man 
of middle stature, stout frame, heavy and plebeian in as- 
pect, but not ungainly in his appearance; and slow of motion, 
as befits both his early pursuits and the gravity of his 
character. He dresses in plain and simple garments, bear- 
ing the appearance of an English yeoman of the humbler 
class. It is a face that when studied justifies his repu- 
tation. The head is large and well developed, high in the 
coronal and thi-nly covered with brown hair, now flecked 
with grey. Mr. Arch has a broad and moderately high 
forehead, deep bluish-grey eyes, heavy well arched eye- 
brows, large well shaped nose and full strong mouth, with 
wide flexible lips, which with a firm lower jaw, give an ex- 
pression of will, force, kindliness and decision, such as 
his public life has shown him to possess. He wears his 
beard after the fashion of English farmers and workmen 
of middle age and beyond, trimmed close but full around 
his face, leaving the chin and mouth bare. It is a face 
full of character in the best sense. A simple, sincere man, 
but sagacious and wise. A man likely to be upheld and 
swayed by spiritual and moral insight — a dreamer of 
dreams, a man of visions, perhaps, but able to keep self- 
poised and self-contained. Joseph Arch could never be- 
tray a cause ; he might become bewildered as the issues 
grew more complex, and men less sincere than himself 
came to fatten on its success. Yet, the very simplicity of 



JOSEPH ARCH. 277 

his character would prove to be its strength, and in the 
end his wisdom would confound the self-seekers. This 
man is pre-eminently the leader and inspirer of a move- 
ment of which John Morley wrote when it began : — " The ^ 
first current of a strange social agitation is passing over 
the land. At last, after generations of profound torpor, 
our eyes discern slow stirrings among the serfs of the field. 
The uncouth Caryatides who have for generations upborne 
the immense structure of civilization in which they have 
no lot, have at length made a sign. The huge dumb fig- 
ure has tried to shift a little from a position of insufferable 
woe. Little may come of it. The current may soo-n 
spend itself; the monstrous burden soon settle pitilessly 
down again on the heavy unconquerable shoulders. The 
many are* so weak, the few are so strong; the conditions 
of social organization shut effort so fast within an iron 
circle. However this may be, the attempt is being made 
by a company of poor men to win a few pence more for 
the week's toil, to raise the mere material conditions of 
life for their wives and their children a little further away 
from the level of the lives of brute beasts." * I 

This last statement embraced only the premonitory 
issues of demands more searching in their character than 
any of the radical agitations that have lately preceded 
them. Strangely enough, it is from these "uncouth Carya- 
tides " that the romance of English political agitation has 
almost always proceeded. The Peasant wars of the four- 
teenth century have lent notable characters to dramatic 
literature, and the names of Wat Tyler, Jack Straw and 

* Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1873. "The Struggle for National 
Education." 



278 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Jack Cade, with the memorable Friar John Ball, have 
lived in tradition and ballads, and animated many an Eng- 
lish heart to life-long exertions in the People's cause. It 
was not for a day only that John Ball, the "mad priest " as 
he is still called, made household words of the rude but 
pithy distich : 

" When Adam delved and Eve span 
Who then was the gentleman ? " 

or condensed the whole philosophy of socialism into the 
words with which he is accredited — " Good people, things 
will never go well in England so long as goods be not in 
common, and so long as there be villains and gentlemen. 
By what right are they whom we call lords greater folks 
than we ? on what ground have they deserved it ; why do 
they hold us in serfage ? If we all came of the same 
father and mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or 
prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they 
make us gain for them by our toil what they spend in their 
pride ? * * # They have leisure and fine houses ; we 
have pain and labor, the rain and the wind in the fields. 
Yet it is of us and our toil that these men hold their 
state." * 

Joseph Arch, the Agitator, is the rightful heir of the 
protest and aspiration credited to Friar John Ball five cen- 
turies ago, carried through various outbursts and now 
being translated into the sober and practical, though radi- 
cal demands, that properly fit in with modern English 
effort. It is difficult for a reader not thoroughly conver- 

* " Green's History of the People of England." 



JOSEPH ARCH. 279 

sant with English social and industrial life to fully under- 
stand the importance of the movement of which Joseph 
Arcb is the leader. The whole fabric of English caste and 
class is so built upon the system of Land Tenure and 
hereditary ownership of the soil by aristocratic families, 
that to assail it, either by an agitation for more wages and 
more rights, is certain to place the oligarchic control in 
danger. And the Agricultural Laborer's agitation has pro- 
voked a searching discussion of the feudal policy which 
animates every part of English land ownership. 

Joseph Arch is now in his forty-ninth year. He was 
born and still lives in the village of Barford, Warwick- 
shire, one of the loveliest counties in the west of England. 
If as Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in " Elsie Venner," 
every man is an omnibus, whose inside passengers are his 
ancestors, it is not without significance that this man should 
have been born in a section of England where the old 
British stock has not been wholly obliterated by the Saxon, 
and from which sprung so large a proportion of the followers 
of Wycliffe and Lollard ; among whom Alfred the Great 
a thousand years ago found shelter from hanging North- 
men, where in latter centuries the followers of Hampden 
and Cromwell were largely recruited, and the Prince of 
Orange was welcomed when he came to reap a Kingdom 
from the overthrow of the Stuarts. Joseph Arch is the 
representative of one of those humbler yeoman families, 
now almost extinct in England, from which came so many 
of the early settlers of New England, and which on one 
side has given many recruits to the prosperous middle class, 
and on the other many more to the laboring poor who 
have so long occupied a "position of insufferable woe." 



280 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

The father of Mr. Arch was, fortunately for his son, lifted 
one step above the condition of a day laborer, by being 
the owner of a tiny freehold only large enough for a garden 
patch, which with an humble cottage, has been retained by 
L the President of the Agricultural Laborers' Union. He 
still resides there, in a style but little removed from that of 
the days of his severe manual labor. Born in 1826, it is 
said of his parents, that — " His father slaved and died, as 
most fathers do, without much hope and comfort in this 
world : but his mother, who felt and thought silently over 
the miseries of a poor man's home, and who, perhaps, had 
concluded that ignorance lay at the root of social misery, 
sent her son Joseph to school at the age of six,' and kept 
him there till between eight and nine, and thus found him 
the key by which he afterwards succeeded in getting at 
some slight knowledge of the world beyond the bounds of 
the village in which he lived, and of seeing, in a dim way, 
those struggles of men in history which explain man's con- 
nection with his fellows in humanity, not only by the past 
history of life, but by the wonderful incitements of hope 
which carry forward the struggle in the direction of right, 
freedom, and justice." # 

At nine years of age, Joseph Arch was taken from 
school, and hired out to a neighboring farmer at fourpence 
(eight cen.ts) per day to scare birds from the growing crops. 
He was apt at work, and soon made himself useful at other 
and mor-e important labor. His good mother died while 
he was still a youth, and his father ere long became inca- 
pable of hard labor. By dint of great exertions only was 

*The Beehive 'Labor Portrait Gallery," London, 1874. 



JOSEPH ARCH. 251 

the little freehold preserved intact. Early in his life, Mr. 
Arch married the daughter of a village mechanic, herself 
employed as a domestic servant in the houses of the neigh- 
boring gentry. As English peasant life goes, it was a good 
match for Mr. Arch, and as events have proved it was the 
most fortunate incident in his life. Mrs. Arch is evidently 
a woman of superior intelligence, spirit and ambition, and 
she was not content that her husband, in whom from the 
outset, she recognized capacity beyond his class, should 
merely vegetate as a farm laborer. For some years his 
wages were but nine shillings or about $2.25 per week, out 
of which five persons were to be cared for — himself, wife, 
two children, son and daughter, and the decrepit father, 
" whose claim on the scant meal was never denied. * * 
The wife of Joseph Arch, however, in a sense of womanly 
affection, revolted against this, and told her husband that 
both of them must face the world and try if, by other labor 
—by anything, in fact, that might turn up — such misery 
as they and theirs had to suffer, could be prevented. This 
determination was carried out by the husband, and Joseph 
re-travelled and worked that the brood at home might be 
better fed. From one thing to another Arch got on, but 
not by any means to affluence. He read and studied, and 
respected his fellows too much to rise in the world by 
pressing them clown. He read the newspapers and knew 
what was going on amongst the mechanics of the towns. 
The wrongs and the rights of labor are the same in kind 
all over England ; they only differ in degree." * In these 
struggles and endeavors, the skill of Mr. Arch in all farm 



Labor Portrait Gallery "Beehive, London, 1874. 



252 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

work, was his earlier mainstay. He was noted through the 
Midland and Western Counties as a " hedger" — at pruning 
and other garden and farm work, requiring more knowl- 
edge and experience than falls to the lot of the ordinary- 
agricultural laborer. He became an authority among the 
farmers, and was greatly respected by them till his cham- 
pionship of the laborers' movement provoked an outburst 
of " bucolic" wrath, which would, if it had dared, have 
recked its first fury against the person of Joseph Arch. At 
the present time, however, he has very largely won their 
respect, as he most certainly has compelled their attention. 
He claims that in his efforts to elevate the laborers, he 
must necessarily benefit the tenant farmers, as a body. It 
should be borne in mind, that the farmers of England are 
very seldom owners of the land they cultivate. Some 
remnant of the freehold tenure still exists among the 
" statesmen" or " dalesmen" of Cumberland and Northum- 
berland, while a few scattered families of yeomanry are 
yet found through the Western Counties. The tendency 
has been more and more marked for a century past, to- 
wards the absorption of the land into fewer hands. It 
would fill a volume to enter even into the mere outlines of 
the questions properly related to this agitation. Not only 
are the farmers as a class mere tenants on the land, but 
very few of them have any lease of their farms, or any con- 
trol of them except at their landlord's will. This system 
of tenure, so injurious to enterprise and so depressing to 
the tenants, woul'd have long since been overthrown in any 
country less conservative in its habits than England. Cus- 
tom has made in this, as in so many other things, a fixity 
of tenure more equitable than the law itself. The rights 



JOSEPH ARCH. 283 

of tenant farmers have long been a fruitful theme of debate 
at their clubs and market dinners, and by politicians seek- 
ing votes from among them. But until Joseph Arch com- 
pelled attention to the condition of the Agricultural La- 
borers these rights had, as a public issue, no significance 
whatever. Now, men of this class have elected one of their 
own number to the House of Commons, and a Conservative 
Ministry enrolls Mr. Clare Read, M. P. for one of the 
divisions of Norfolk, among its members, though in a sub- 
ordinate position. Bills to regulate the tenure of land, 
more or less tentative in character, are pending, and econ- 
omists like Professor Fawcett discuss the matter before 
great metropolitan constituencies. Progress in this direc- 
tion may be traced directly to the agitation by the laborers, 
which the farmers as a body, at first by threats, often by 
acts of violence, and always with bitter denunciations and 
harsh actions, have sternly resisted. It was the wandering 
life of Joseph Arch that gave him that thorough acquaint- 
ance with agricultural life which enables him to talk to the 
laborers in a manner adapted to their local peculiarities, 
speech and mode of work. This must ahvays prove one of 
the most essential qualities for success as a popular leader. 
But it is to his position as a local preacher among the 
Primitive Methodists, the sect to which he belongs, that 
much of his deeper power and insight is due. * * 
When a man of his class opens his mouth, if he has any- 
thing of true manhood really in him, he must soon make 
himself felt, not simply as a preacher in the pulpit, but as 
an utterer of truths that touch life on its practical side, and 
raise questions that involve, not God's justice only, but 
man's justice to man in the most ordinary concerns of the 



284 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

world. " # The speeches of Joseph Arch show in every 
sentence how his thoughts and style have been moulded 
by the strong and simple Anglo-Saxon translation of the 
Hebrew Scriptures, which will always be the " well of 
English undefiled" to every one, layman or priest, who 
studies and masters it. Joseph Arch's speech is full of 
scriptural allusions, and his mind has much of the solemn 
fervor of the elder prophets. He is really an orator, and 
one too, of no mean pretensions. No writer, having to 
avail himself largely of the pen of others, he is, when 
standing before "his people," a man gifted with great 
powers. 

The present Agricultural Laborers' movement dates 
back to the month of February, 1872, when Joseph Arch, 
then known only as a strong and fluent preacher of the 
sect to which he belongs, and as a man of strong sym- 
pathies with the class to which he is allied, was called to 
the leadership. No movement of importance among them 
had occurred for about thirty years, when the leaders of a 
Laborers' Union in Dorsetshire were tried under the unjust 
combination laws of that day and sentenced to several years 
penal transportation. The sentence was actually carried 
out, and the men served several years as convicts, and 
were finally pardoned and returned. Two of them are 
now living, and received quite an ovation at a mass meet- 
ing called for the purpose. During the Anti Corn Law 
League Agitation, meetings were held at which farm labor- 
ers participated. One of the most memorable of these 
was held on Salisbury Plain — the point of meeting being 

* Beehive " Labor Portrait Gallery." 



JOSEPH ARCH. 285 

among the Druidical remains of Stonehenge. The time 
was night, and all England shuddered at the woe and \_ 
misery the speeches conveyed. Men of middle-age, gaunt, 
grim, -stalwart, told of their constant pinching, — how they 
and their children suffered from hunger, — and recited the 
fact that few of them were able to procure meat from one 
year's end to the other, with other facts not very gratifying 
to English pride. The Corn Laws were repealed soon . 
after, and these significant meetings undoubtedly has- 
tened that event. When this dumb giant does move 
under the English Etna, there are few statesmen hardy 
enough not to heed the sign. Since that event the agri- 
cultural laborer had remained silent in sullen acquiescence, 
until some of them at the village of Wellesbourne, near the ( 
fashionable summer resort of Leamington, Warwickshire, 
asked Joseph Arch to address them in the open air under 
the limbs of a great chestnut tree which spreads its branch- 
es over the common. Previous to this date, however, an 
effort at organizing a Union had been commenced in Lin- 
colnshire. A great strike had been in progress at New- / 
castle, in the iron works, and discussion over this was the 
moving cause of the Lincolnshire attempt. The first meet- 
ing was held January 7th, 1873, and thereat, the following 
resolves were adopted : — 



"(1.) That the agricultural laborers of England form themselves t 
into a Union, having for its object the social redemption of the agri- v_ 
cultural laborers of England generally. 

(2.) That this meeting shall select from their number twelve of . 
the most intelligent members to form a committee, a president, and a 
secretary. 

(3.) That no member should strike work or ask his employer for 



286 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

a rise of wages, but should continue his employment the same as be- 
1 fore. 

(4.) That the Secretary and each member should do his utmost 
to augment the Union all over the country. 

(5.) That this meeting assemble every fortnight to give in a verbal 
report of its proceedings and success. 

(6.) That a meeting be held at the most central town of the coun- 
ty, on the first Monday in April, at which meeting each member shall 
pay is. entrance fee and 2d. per week subscription from this date. 

(7.) All members to attend. A president, vice-president, execu- 
tive committee, trustees, treasurer, and secretary, to be elected for the 
next six months ; the result of this meeting only to be made public, 
and not those held previous. 

(8.) That propositions be prepared and brought forward at this 
quarterly meeting, calculated to regulate the Union for the future." 

/ Strikes were, it will be seen, forbidden, nor did the 
movers intend to make any public demonstrations. The 
fact however of the organization was published in a Lon- 
don paper, and Joseph Arch had his attention called to it 
by his neighbors. 

The meeting at Wellesbourne was held. Mr. Vincent, 
Editor of The Laborers' Union Chronicle, who then pub- 
lished and edited a local paper at Leamington, gives the 
following account of the impression made by that meeting, 
and the result that followed so rapidly on its heels : 
C " Early in the month of February, 1872, an old man 

called at our newspaper office in Leamington, and asked 
us to send a reporter to Wellesbourne, to a meeting of ag- 
ricultural laborers which was going to be held under the 
now famous chestnut tree, at which Joseph Arch, of Bar- 
ford, would make a speech. We accordingly sent a re- 
porter, who was astonished to find nearly 2000 people 
assembled. He was still more surprised at the speech 



JOSEPH ARCH. 287 

made by Mr. Arch ; and on reading the report of that 
meeting, we felt that in this man's impassioned yet thought- 
ful utterances there was a lever which would bring about 
a great moral and intellectual awakening among the down- 
trodden peasantry of England — a class hitherto supposed 
to be in such a hopelessly dormant state that the general 
progress of our country could scarcely affect it. That 
meeting at Wellesbourne was followed by similar gather- 
ings in other Warwickshire villages, at each of which Jo- 
seph Arch, whom they had already enthusiastically ac- 
cepted as their leader, spoke with unwearying eloquence 
and manly force the same deeply earnest words of encour- 
agement and hopefulness for their future welfare. After 
some few weeks, during which we continued to report these 
gatherings in our local paper, the movement began to at- 
tract wider notice j it was everywhere hailed with surprise 
and satisfaction, and soon became the subject of comment 
and illustration by all the leading journals of the country. 
The movement in Warwickshire began early in February 
and on the following Good Friday a monster meeting was 
held in one of the public halls of Leamington to inaugu- 
rate the establishment of a Union of agricultural laborers 
for this county. That gathering can never be forgotten by 
those who witnessed it. Crowds of laborers with their 
wives and little ones, often headed by the village drum and 
fife band, streamed into the fashionable spa ; and the large 
hall of meeting could barely hold a third of the number 
of persons assembled. We may mention the kind encour- 
agement and assistance rendered in the early progress of 
the movement by the Hon. Auberon Herbert and Mr. E. 
Jenkins, M. P. j and at the meeting on Good Friday, these 



2 55 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

\ gentlemen, together with Mr. Jesse Collings and Dr. Lang . 
f ford of Birmingham, were among the principal speakers. 
From that day, the Laborers' Union in Warwickshire be- 
came an accomplished fact. The effort made to suppress 
it on t.he part of landlords and farmers at Wellesbourne 
had been successfully resisted ; public subscriptions in 
furtherance of the movement had- been received to a large 
amount, the editor of this paper alone receiving about 
£400, including the handsome donation of ^100 (an- 
nounced amidst enthusiastic cheering at the Good Friday 
meeting) through Mr. Dixon, M. P., by a laborers' friend 
at Birmingham, accompanied by a brief note, which at 
once became the battle-cry of the movement : " The right 
to form the Union must be fought for to the death !" The 
laborers who had assembled on that memorable Good Fri- 
day evening, refurned to their homes, many to the most 
distant villages of Warwickshire, with the firm conviction 
that they had laid the foundation-stone of a great move- 
ment for their elevation. For in very truth, the dry bones 
had begun to move, and the dumb mouths to speak."* 

The next step was the publication by Mr. Vincent of 
the paper which he has smce conducted, and of which it 
may be truthfully said, that no abler, wiser, or bolder labor 
organ has been or is now issued. That paper published a 
call for a National Congress which was held in May, 1872. 
In the meanwhile, the fierce opposition of the farmers had 
reacted vigorously in favor of the laborers'. The weak 
and unmanly suggestion made in a public speech by the 
\ Bishop of Manchester, advising farm employees to put 

* Laborers' Union Chronicle, June 5, 1875. 



JOSEPH ARCH. 289 

the Union organizers into the nearest horse ponds, had 1 
the effect of arousing the nonconforming hostility to 
the establishment, and of adding largely to the public 
sympathy. Many of the landed gentry joined with the 
farmers in their opposition to the movement. The unpaid 
magistracy swelled the chorus with stupid acts of injus- 
tice by imprisoning women and children who had hooted 
some men who were at work on the highways, while others 
were on strike. The radical party, through its leading 
men, at once made the laborers' cause its own. The Prim- 
itive Methodist ministry was made use of to circulate the 
call. The Chronicle says : # * # " We immediately is- 
sued two circulars, one addressed to every minister on the 
minute book of the denomination requesting him to put 
the other (which announced the Conference) into the 
hands of the most intelligent laborer in his district, and 
urge him to call a meeting of his fellows, and send a dele- 
gate to Leamington. We now began to prepare our pro- 
gramme, and to look into the causes of the degraded posi- 
tion of the laborer, and to consider what was required to 
assist him in the work of self-emancipation. With this 
view, we communicated with several well-known gentlemen, 
inviting them to contribute papers to the Conference, the 
same to form the basis of the future work of the National 
Agricultural Laborers' Union ; the result being that the 
following subjects were most ably treated upon : The land 
laws, by the Hon. Auberon Herbert, M. P. ; Garden and 
meadow allotments, by Sir Baldwin Leighton, Bart, (a 
Conservative landlord, by the way) ; Education, by Mr. 
Jesse Collings ; Co-operative farming, by the Hon. and 
Rev. J. W. Leigh ; The reclamation of waste lands, by ( 
13 J 9 



29O BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

[ Mr. H. Brookes ; Co-operative stores, by Mr. Butcher, of 
Banbury ; Village clubs and reading rooms, by the Rev. 
H. Solly, etc., etc."' 

This -programme was in reality too ambitious, and the 
work to be done was more immediate and practical. 
Though the Laborers' Association is by no means a mere 
Trades' Union, in the usual acceptation of that term, it 
had a great deal of similar work to do. To organize emi- 
gration was among the earliest aims. Much work was and 
is being done in that direction. 

^ The work performed by Joseph Arch in travelling and 
speaking since that first meeting in February, 1872, has 
simply been prodigious in its extent. Up to the pres- 
ent date he has almost constantly spoken eight or ten times 
each week, at points far apart, and requiring a large 
amount of travelling in order to reach them. The only 
exceptions to this active agitation, was during Ks travels 
in Canada and the United States, in the winter of 1873-4, 
when, it will be remembered, he spoke in several American 
cities, the most notable demonstration being that held in 
Faneuil Hall, Boston, in which Wendell Phillips and Gen. B. 
F. Butler participated. This journey was undertaken for 
the purpose of facilitating the organization of their emi- 
gration movement, and was by previous understanding, 
confined chiefly to Canada. Mr. Arch has several times 
stated since, that he intended to re-visit and travel more 
fully through 'the United States, especially the western 
and southern portions. 

In the spring of 1874, the farmers of Norfolk, one of 
the eastern counties, inaugurated a general lockout, which 
in its consequences embraced some 15,000 laborers. It 



JOSEPH ARCK. 29I 

resulted in an apparent victory to the employers, but in 
the end, the laborers have secured a large advance of 
wages. It continued for many weeks, and large contribu- 
tions were made to support the men locked out, not by 
Trades' Unionists only, but by the liberals everywhere. 
Public meetings were held in all the large cities, at all of 
which Mr. Arch spoke. Mass meetings were held gener- 
ally out of doors, among the laborers, and especially in 
the lock-out district. Mr. Arch was supported by men 
from the ranks, young and old, who have since developed 
much talent. The movement assumed something of the 
favor and excitement of a religious crusade. It went 
deeper and spread broader than a mere question of wages. 
The enclosures of common land, the relations of the state 
church to the people, the quality of the unpaid magistracy, 
the want of and demand for education, the tenure of the 
land, the feudal character of the law of entail, and the 
exclusion of the peasant from the franchise, were among 
the most prominent topics. But the thoroughness with 
which the branch Unions inquired into and made pub- 
lic the facts relating to the wages paid, the condition 
of cottages inhabited, the spirit displayed towards their 
movement, etc., by the leading public men and proprietors, 
had a more direct effect on the sentiment of their followers 
than all else. When they were told that the wages paid on 
the estates of the Queen and the Prince of Wales, did not 
exceed fourteen shillings (about $3.40) per week, and that 
this sum had been obtained only after persistent agitation 
in the neighborhood, it sensibly affected their loyalty, es- 
pecially when it has been accompanied by very plain 
speaking and writing with regard to the cost and wealth of 



292 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

royalty, and the wasteful extravagance attributed to the 
heir apparent. 

Mr. Arch himself, has shown jn his speeches the same 
growth that has marked his followers' progress, but with 
him it has been accompanied by that deep sense of re- 
sponsibility which necessarily precludes passionate expres- 
sion or any tendency towards inflaming the minds of those 
who trust him. He has quite skilfully led them and their 
movement from one of personal amelioration to demands 
for reforms in legislation and legal position, which it must 
be evident will more permanently advance their interests. 
His speeches are notable for this sagacious comprehensive- 
ness. In one, delivered May 13, 1875, in Norfolk, refer- 
ring to previous reforms, he said : — 

" That he believed the formation of the National Agricultural 
Union- was one of these great reforms, and that in after years it would 
be seen to have saved the Protestantism of the country from putrefac- 
tion, to have saved the Government from going into excess, and to 
have saved agriculture from a landlord monopoly, which would, if not 
stopped, have laid the tenant farmers upon their backs. He asked 
whether it was right to offer opposition to such a movement — a 
movement which has for its end such noble aims and objects, and also 
a nation-saving design. He said ' nation-saving design,' because he 
felt satisfied that if the laborers had not moved in the matter, the ten- 
ant farmers would have been wrecked on the rocks of their own crea- 
tion. Show him a country where agriculture is prosperous, then he 
would say that that country was safe ; but show him a country where 
her laborers were becoming scarcer and scarcer, and where her bone 
and sinew were fast on their way to ruin, then he must say that that 
country was not safe. He claimed for this Union that it had been set 
on foot both for the benefit of the employer and the employed, and he 
was surprised to find that the tenant farmers were opposed to the 
movement. 

* * * ***** 



JOSEPH ARCH. 293 

" He wanted that a privilege that was extended to one part of Her 
Majesty's subjects should be extended to all. The aim of the nobility 
and clergy had always been to keep the working-men of the country 
— the laborers — ignorant, and they said that this question was a social 
one. , They had lost the sympathy of a great many of the clergy, be- 
cause they dared attend public meetings and sign petitions ; but he 
thought they could well dispense with the sympathy of the clergy, and 
they were determined to have their rights. Whether he wore a broad- 
cloth coat or a smock frock, he claimed for them both an equal right, 
and that the one as well as the other could say, ' I am a man ; ' and 
as men they could claim the rights of men. They ought to say that, 
while they were called upon to pay taxes, they ought to have a voice, 
so as to be able to say how those taxes were to be spent, and they 
ought also to have a voice in the making of the laws which they had 
to obey, by sending men to Parliament .who they thought would pro- 
tect their interest. 

Until the tenant farmers had got a fair sprinkling of their class 
into the House of Commons, their wrongs would not be redressed. It 
would seem rather strange to my Lords and the Squires, if one morn- 
ing they found that the agricultural laborers had got enfranchised. 
Why, it would make them as wild as March hares to think that the 
wild agitator, Arch, had been there and done all this ; but it was going 
to be done, and that speedily. There was not the slightest mistake 
about that. They never could expect justice from the landlords. The 
laborers of 1872 were not the laborers of to-day, for they grew more 
intelligent, more thoughtful and earnest about their own interests every 
week, and whereas some weeks ago they dared not to walk erect nor 
call their soul their own, now they walked erect, and were as intelli- 
gent as many of the farmers. And as this intelligence grew, so must 
they sell their labor at the best advantage, and if they could not get 
sufficient for it here, they must go somewhere else where they 
could."* 



Mr. Arch has from the outset of the agitation been a 



Report of the Laborers' Chronicle, May, 1875. 



294 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. . 

strenuous advocate of emigration. In a speech made soon 
after returning from his Canadian journey, he said : — 

"In packing up and going to the Colonies the laboring man must 
not suppose that he is going to pick up dollars in the street or was 
going to wring a large fortune out of other people. * * If he in- 
tended to go to the Colonies, he must really mean to work, and to any 
industrious man who really meant manfully to work, the Colonies of- 
fered splendid advantages. 

They had 500 emigrants' letters at the League office, but not pub- 
lished. Throughout the whole of this country these letters are being 
sent, silently doing the work of emigration agents. * * He had re- 
ceived passes to travel over six States of America. Who was it that 
was sending for him ? Not the Government, but the farmers of Ame- 
rica who all wished laim to go amongst them, and report as he had 
done of Canada. Could any one assert that his report of Canada was 
not a true one ! No one could, and as he had truthfully reported of 
Canada so would he of America." 

A considerable portion of the Union funds have been 
used to aid the emigration movement, and the English 
Colonial Agents have strenuously taken advantage of the 
interest aroused. Another policy pursued by the Labor- 
ers Union, and of which Mr. Arch was the mover, is that 
of an exchange of labor information, so that men may 
learn where employment is scarce or abundant, the wages 
paid, and other conditions. The constant drain which has 
been going on from the country to the towns, from England 
to the Colonies and elsewhere, and to the demand for the 
sturdier laborers, on railroads and other public works, has 
had a perceptible effect on the laborers' movement, by les- 
sening competition. It appears by the last British census 
that " returns of farm laborers fell off in England and Wales 
from 958,000 in 186 1, to 798,000 in 187 1, or nearly 17 per 



JOSEPH ARCH. 295 

cent.: and in Scotland, from 105,000 in 186 1, to 93,000 in 
187 1, or nearly 12 per cent. Indoor farm servants, of 
whom about five-sixths are males, and many of whom prob- 
ably are out of door laborers living in farm houses, num- 
bered in England and Wales, 205,000 in 1861 and 159,000 
in 187 1, showing a decrease at the rate of .22 per cent. 
The large and increasing preponderance of the town over 
the country population in England and Wales, which was 
in the proportion of 62 to 38 per cent, in 1861, points to 
the probability of a continued decrease." 

The Union itself, has not, of course, maintained the 
strength with which it started. The popular excitement 
at the time rapidly filled its ranks, but when it was evident 
that a long^up-hill fight was before the organization, the 
membership fell off. Three annual congresses have been 
held, the last one at Birmingham, early in June, being 
largely attended. Moncure D. Conway, in a letter to the 
Cincinnati Conunercial, wrote at the time that the 
laborers had " made a decidedly good impression on the 
country. They were able to point to wages substantially 
increased and hours of toil shortened by their movement • 
but better than either of these were the evidences given by 
the delegates to an awakened spirit of independence and 
intelligence throughout the nation in a class which, in all 
popular movements, had hitherto been counted out as ab- 
ject serfs. It will be impossible to prevent the enfran- 
chisement of these men very long." 

« The report made at the Birmingham Congress shows 
the condition of the Union to be as follows : — In the finan- 
cial year of 1874 the number of members was computed at 
86, 000 in 37 districts and 1,480 branches, which was an in- 



296 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

crease on the year 1873 of 14,000 members. The number 
of members to the end of April, 1875, was 58,652 in 38 
districts, with 1,368 branches. The total income from the 
branches to the districts in 1874 was ,£21,000 ; the amount 
in 1875 being ^"23,036, showing a greater return of contri- 
butions notwithstanding a decrease in numbers. The 
amount paid away for relief in cases of lock-outs and strikes 
in 1874 was ,£7,500. During 1875, on account of the 
great Eastern Counties' lock-out, it has reached the amount 
of ^21,365. The amount paid away for migration was 
^"2,630, and for emigration ^3,367 . Upwards of 1,600* 
adults have been assisted to New Zealand by free passages. 
3,407 have also been sent to Ontario, Canada, and a con- 
siderable number have also gone to Queensland. In ex- 
cess of the members' ordinary contributions, there was 
collected the sum of ^5,595 in support of the lock-out, and 
contributions from the Trades' Unions, &c, and the gen- 
eral public amount to ^"21,613. The law expenses of the 
Union (including a libel suit against the editor of the 
Laborers'' Chronicle, the liabilities of which the Union dis- 
charged), were ^691. The entire cost of management, 
including lecturers, delegates, secretaries, and officers, 
amounts to ^"10,763. Cash on hand in 1874 was ,£2,148 : 
in 1875 it was ,£4,200. * 

A sharp dispute now prevails in the organization, 
which, while it may affect the original Union, will not in- 
jure the general movement. It grows out of a difficulty 
between the editor of the Laborers' Chronicle and the Gen- 

* Condensed from the report of the Laborers' Chronicle, May 29th, 
and June 5th, 1875. 



JOSEPH ARCH. 297 

eral Secretary of the Union. The former has insisted that 
the effort was much more than a Trades' Union one, and 
that there must be a vigorous seeking after social advance- 
ment ; that it was more desirable to organize for the con- 
trol of land at home, than to remove labor abroad. 
Accusations of loose management by the executive officers, 
which, however, especially exclude Mr. Arch, have also 
been made. One result is the establishment of an official 
organ of the Union, and the organization by Mr. Vincent 
of another Union, embracing beneficial and co-operative 
objects. Mr. Arch appears to preserve the friendship of 
both sides. The Chronicle, speaking of him, said some 
time since : — 

:< This man in every way commands our warmest ad- 
miration. * # # # It is truly no insignificant fact 
that Joseph Arch is able to make himself understood by a 
simple-minded and reputed ignorant peasantry, as probably 
no man was ever able before to make himself understood 
who spoke the same great truths which this man speaks, 
and sustained the same wide bearing and statesmanlike 
argument which this man often sustains. The Earl of 
Kimberley, who, the other day, in the House of Lords, 
lamented his inability to explain to an agricultural laborer 
the nature and operation of the rural Education Act, might 
well take a lesson in the school of Joseph Arch and learn 
of him how to meet his fellow man face to face, and estab- 
lish an interchange of thought with him. The secret of 
Joseph Arch's success is that he is, in truth and reality, 
still one of them, and not an outsider — a stranger, whose 
mode of thought, and language, and manners are not as 
theirs. 

13* 



290 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

" It is education, and such unpurchaseable educational 
influences as those which Joseph Arch is now exerting 
amongst the laborers of England, by which such beneficent 
results must be achieved ; an educational influence based 
on unquestionable love, and warmest good will and solic- 
itude towards his fellow men ; an influence which makes 
itself understood beyond the possibility of doubt, because 
it is a great active force which, being present, cannot help 
but make itself felt. Witness the hearty brotherly greet- 
ings which Joseph Arch receives when he presents himself 
before an assemblage of laborers in any part of England ; 
see the smiles and almost frantic joy of the women, the warm 
pressing of hands and exclamations of grateful delight, as 
in the presence of a genuine hero and deliverer of a people 
from poverty and oppression." 

" Joseph Arch is a true priest among his people — he 
still preaches voluntarily, and without fee or reward, two 
or three times on Sundays, in addition to his arduous 
work of the week ; and when he meets them on these oc- 
casions it may be truly said that 

' His ready smiles a parent's warmth express, 
Their welfare pleases and their cares distress.' 

"It is impossible for any unprejudiced mind, whether 
it be animated with a lively faith in the progress of human- 
ity or not, to listen to Joseph Arch, as we were privileged 
to listen to him * * * while addressing an 
assemblage of agricultural laborers, without being deeply 
impressed not only with his evident sincerity, his noble 
and generous sentiments, his strong, practical good sense, 



JOSEPH ARCH. 299 

his intense love of freedom, and passionate hatred of op- 
pression and meanness ;— to see the sympathetic yet firm 
and uncompromising manner in which he admonishes and 
reproves the shortcomings of the class to which he belongs 
— the unaffected and manly pride with which he asserts 
and maintains the dignity of that class, and the clear 
sighted, yet simple and genuine spirit of brotherhood and 
loyal association with which he preserves his identity with 
it — the singleness and directnesss of purpose — the purity 
and exaltation of motive — the calm and equal manner with 
which he bears himself towards rich and poor alike — all 
these, and many more fine shades of character which we 
have not ventured to particularise, point to Joseph Arch 
not merely as one of the best talking and most talked of 
men of his time, but as one chosen in the providence of 
God to do a great work for humanity — to effect lasting 
and powerful results for good among the people with 
which he is especially identified, and to establish in Eng- 
land such a noble, self-dependent, moral, and intelligent 
peasant class as that in praise of which Burns, the plough- 
man poet of Scotland, breathed in prayerful melody his 
ardent patriotic soul, and on the existence and the native 
liberty-loving spirit of which Englishmen are largely de- 
pendant for their permanent continuance." 

In the meanwhile the plain speaking and the agitation 
goes forward. Pages of extracts might be given to show 
how plain the speeches and how vigorous the agitation. 
Mr. Arch at Hungerford, Berkshire, illustrated both when, 
speaking of the House of Commons, he declared it to be 
a great "Trades' Union" of the "governing classes." 
Speaking of a criticism from a paper representing the 



300 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

farmers, he said that had it " been in existence when .the 
great teacher of mankind travelled from village to village 
and town to town, it would have called him a roving agita- 
tor." When the laborers agitation began, "lips were 
sealed " he said, " by the hand of the oppressor ; we were 
set down as ignoramuses ; as men without feeling, to be 
treated as so many cattle, nay, worse than the cattle the 
farmer kept on his land — (Cheers,) — and yet when we be- 
gan to speak the truth we were called roving agitators, 
demagogues, red republicans, and God knows what. 
(Cheers.) I don't know whether the statement I have just 
made may be questioned ; but I have seen the farmer take 
the meat and give it to his dog while his laborer has sat 
close by in a shed without a mouthful to eat. ('That is 
true.') But the extra wages are not all the Union has ac- 
complished. I venture to assert that the farm laborers 
never read in their lives as they read now — (' never ') — 
would never have thought so keenly, or had the lib- 
erty to speak so freely but for the Union. (Cheers.) If 
there was any gentleman who had any objection to raise 
let him raise it now and not twit him to-morrow before his 
laborers or next week in the local papers. (Hear, hear.) 
How many thousands of laborers has this movement 
taught to read, who would have lived and died without be- 
ing able to read from the inspired book of God ; and 
thousands, he was pleased to think of it, were now able to 
read that book of books for themselves. ('That is true.') 
But the movement in those counties where the men have 
remained true, has taught their employers a little bit of 
good behaviour. (Applause, and a voice : ' How to use 
their men.') And after giving the farmers two or three 



JOSEPH ARCH. 3OI 

years more schooling they might send round the subscrip- 
tion boxes and ask them to pay for their education. (Ap- 
plause.) I dare say there are plenty of laborers' wives 
who would have cheek enough to be collectors. (Laughter.) 
There was, beyond a doubt, a brighter future for the farm 
laborer of England, if the laborers were determined it 
should be so. (Cheers.) To shout hurrah merely will 
not make it bright ; nor will spending your money in a 
public house ; but sober, steady, unflinching perseverance, 
would not only make the future bright but prosperous. 
(Applause.) One of the bright hopes of that future was 
the possession of political power. This was a question a 
great many men in the country heartily wished had never 
been mentioned. (' True.') When I was first called out 
by my fellow laborers, and went from village to village, the 
clergy walked round patting me on the back, and said 
' Now, look here, pray don't make this a political ques- 
tion, keep it purely social and you will be right.' (Laugh- 
ter.) I ask, is there a class of men more jealous of their 
political power than are the clergy? ('None.') If every 
Bishop was drawn from the House of Lords, and every 
representative of the clergy turned out of the House of 
Commons, they would kick up a pretty dust over it. 
(Laughter.) If political power was good for the priest, it 
must be good for the people; and whether they say yea 
or nay, we think otherwise. (Hear.) I hold that the 
farm laborers of this country would not have been in the 
degraded condition -they are if the rights of citizenship 
allowed their betters had been granted them. These 
rights have allowed our betters to steal away our com- 
mons, and make one law for the rich and one law for the 



302 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

poor. (Applause.) We are now rising up to a sense of 
our manhood, and are determined that we will have our 
rights as citizens. In the House of Commons the laborer 
can count on 175 votes in favor of his Bill ; but the farmer 
can not lay his hand on a single vote in favor of the Ten- 
ant Right Bill. That Bill got the dirty kick out. (Laugh- 
ter.) And what about the Tenant Right Bill in the House 
of Lords last night? If I read the speech of Lord Gran- 
ville aright he represented the Tenant Right Bill to be 
like the colored bladders that, men sell about the streets 
at a half-penny apiece — very pretty to the eye, going 
whichever way of the wind, but when opened there is 
nothing in them." 

During the session of 1875, the bill extending the 
franchise to the agricultural laborers, introduced by Mr. 
Trevelyan and championed by all the advanced liberals 
was defeated by a vote of 268 to 166 — 102 majority 
against it. The London Times said next morning that 
they were " living in days when there is no political fore- 
cast," and intimated quite sharply that Mr. Disraeli was 
at fault in not acting favorably. John Bright presented a 
petition signed by 60,000 laborers, and in doing so, spoke 
with all of his old eloquence and earnestness in its favor. 
The Hon. Wm. E. Forster pressed the passage of the 
Trevelyan bill with all his skill, and paid a marked tribute 
to the movement out of which the demand has grown, in 
these words : 

" The meetings of agricultural laborers show us a new 
class taking part in public affairs with great moderation 
and earnestness, and avowing that injustice will be done 
them if a settlement of the question • is longer postponed ; 



• JOSEPH ARCH. 303 

and the petition presented to-day, signed by 60,000 labor- 
ers, is not a petition to be lightly treated. What do hon- 
orable members wish ? Do they desire a repetition of the 
agitation which preceded the measures of 1830 and 1867 ? 
Here are a million householders who have not votes sim- 
ply by reason of the accident that they live outside bor- 
oughs, some hundreds of thousands being agricultural 
laborers, a class which we acknowledge to have claims, 
and a class which is not represented in this House. These 
men have patiently, persistently and earnestly for years 
claimed that they should be treated in the same manner 
as urban householders. Hardly a member of this House, 
or any public man out of it, or any writer of the press, 
denies the justice of their claim ; there is, in fact, no dis- 
agreement of opinion. No one doubts they ought to be 
voters. The demand made from these benches is met by 
the answer — We agree with you, only let us pass it at our 
convenience. It does not satisfy these men, nor ought it : 
they have reasonable ground for the belief that because 
they have no votes their interests are neglected in com- 
parison with the interests of those who have. Is it not 
time for us to consider seriously how long we can with 
prudence persevere in a policy which would be absurd if 
it were not dangerous, the policy of excluding a million 
by treating their claim with indifference, almost contempt- 
uous indifference, while we vie with each other in acknowl- 
edging its justice ? " 

The next general election will very probably see the 
laborer and agitator, Joseph Arch, elected to the English 
Parliament, the peer of the proudest man in that land. His 
career has been a remarkable one, and now with the con- 



304 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

sciousness of large abilities, the love and respect not only 
of his own class, but of the people generally, and in the 
full meridian of his powers, he has before hint a career of 
influence to which it is difficult to assign limits. 



XVIII. 



Charles Bradlaugh- 




HARLES BRADLAUGH was born Septem- 
ber 26th, 1833, at Hoxton, an Eastern suburb 
of London. His father was a solicitor's clerk 
and law copyist. The son writes of him : " He was an 
extremely industrious man, and a splendid penman. I 
never had an opportunity of judging his tastes or 
thoughts, except in one respect, in which I have followed 
in his footsteps. He was passionately fond of angling." 
Mr. Bfadlaugh's attendance on school began at seven and 
was completed before he was twelve, when he was em- 
ployed as an errand boy in the solicitor's office, where his 
father was engaged. He left this office at the. age of four- 
teen and became wharf clerk and cashier to a firm of coal 
dealers. Soon after commenced the life of agitation which 
Mr. Bradlaugh has since pursued. The Chartist movement 
was then at its height, intensified soon a f ter by the revolu- 
tionary excitement of toppling thrones and fleeing kings, 
which the continental nations exhibited. Meetings were 

20 



306 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

being constantly held in the neighborhood of young Brad- 
laugh's home. They were commonly held in the open air, 
and generally in the evening or on Sundays. Bishop 
Bourne's field was the favorite meeting place — then an open 
space in Eastern London, bearing historical associations 
in its name to every English ear, and close to a neighbor- 
hood that was most notable, and whose chief residents 
were and are the descendants of men and women who had 
occasion to remember the cruel ecclesiastic and the mis- 
tress he served — the " Bloody Queen" Mary Tudor, whose 
career Tennyson has freshly embalmed in the precious 
amber of his verse. The neighborhood referred to is that 
of Spitalfields, largely inhabited by weavers of the famous 
silk known by that name. These weavers are the descend" 
ants of Huguenot settlers, who fled to England after the 
revocation of the edict of Nantes. The narrow streets in 
which they then lived and worked appeared to a looker-on 
like a section of some French manufacturing town of the 
seventeenth century, slightly modernized, set down bodily in 
the poorer portion of London. There were dingy brick dwell- 
ings — three stories in height — the fronts of which, above the 
ground or store floors, were lit by narrow latticed casements 
with leaden frames and diamond shaped panes, running 
clear across the room-fronts, thus giving ample light to the 
workers at the Jacquard looms within. The principal busi- 
ness besides weaving seemed to be the rearing, buying and 
selling of song birds and fancy pigeons. Little shops, 
musical with the twitter and songs of birds, filled whole 
streets, giving space only to the necessary butcher, grocer, 
baker, and the "public," where both men and women met 
and discussed the birds, the flight and breed of their 



CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 307 

pigeons, the wages they received and the " Charter " — for 
the weavers were and are among the most ardent politi- 
cians in England. On the roof of nearly every dwelling 
couM be seen the pigeon cots, and great numbers of the 
beautiful birds were continually being trained. 

Mr. Bradlaugh, then an ardent and studious boy of fif- 
teen years, was far removed from the agitation into which 
he so soon developed. He attended an Episcopal church 
regularly with his parents, and was, he says, a teacher in 
the Sunday School attached thereto. This habit was how- 
ever suddenly terminated in this wise, — to use Mr. Brad- 
laugh's own language . — 

" The Bishop of London was announced to hold a con- 
firmation in Bethnal Green. The incumbent of St. Peter's, 
Hackney Road, the district in which I resided, was one 
John Graham Packer, and he, desiring to make a good 
figure when the Bishop came, pressed me to prepare for 
confirmation, so as to answer any question the Bishop 
might put, I studied a little the Thirty-nine Articles of 
the Church of England, and the four Gospels, and came to 
the conclusion that they differed. I ventured to write the 
Rev. Mr. Packer a respectful letter, asking him for aid 
and explanation. All he did was to denounce my letter to 
my parents as Atheistical, although at that time I should 
have shuddered at the very notion of becoming an Atheist, 
and he suspended me for three months from my office 
as Sunday-school teacher. This left me my Sundays free, 
for I did not like to go to church while suspended from my 
teacher's duty, and I, instead, went to Bonner's Fields, at 
first to listen, but soon to take part in some of the discus- 
sions which were then always pending there." 



308 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

As a polemist his first appearance was on the side of 
religion. But in 1849 he had become a " Freethinker," 
and a rupture with his father occurred. The Vicar insti- 
gated Mr. Bradlaugh, Sen., to demand the surrender of his 
son's opinions, coupling therewith a threat of loss of em- 
ployment. The result of this was that the young man left 
his home, never more to return while his father lived. He 
began in earnest the life of a lecturer, following in the day 
whatever occupation he could obtain. During the previous 
year (1848) -he had made his first political harangue at a 
large open air meeting held one Sunday in Bishop Bonner's 
fields, — a meeting which was violently assailed on break- 
ing up by a body of armed police ; and for speeches at 
which Ernest Jones, the eloquent barrister, brilliant writer, 
orator and poet, with one or two others, were subsequently 
arrested and sent to Tuthills- Penitentiary for two years, on 
account of the sedition which, it was charged, they advo- 
cated. 

Charles Bradlaugh, the boy orator, soon became well 
known in the circles attracted to such discussions ; first as 
a Deist, and later as an Atheist. At the same time he be- 
came connected with the " Secular" movement, which was 
just then shaping itself. From the time of leaving his 
Father's house in 1848, until December, 1850, his position 
was a severe one, full of arduous efforts at " making a 
living," and of attempts to obtain the knowledge to 
which preceding years had not been favorable. He wrote 
polemical pamphlets that attracted some attention • tried 
to do business as a coal dealer, but was not very successful ; 
was very poor " and at the time " he says " was also very 
proud." He learned during these years, he says himself, 



CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 309 

" a little Hebrew and an imperfect smattering of other 
tongues." However imperfect were such acquisitions then, 
it is certain they have been so diligently used as to make 
his * scholarship of accurate value to him in subsequent 
years of disputation. Mr. Bradlaugh's mastery of French 
is almost as complete as that of his mother tongue. 

An event occurred at the time (1850) whose results have 
probably been quite marked on his character and career. 
Depressed by his penury, which had been brought home by 
a subscription raised and offered him by some freethinking 
friends, Mr. Bradlaugh in his nineteenth year enlisted as a 
private in the Seventh Dragoon Guards. He remained in 
the service for three years, being quartered during the whole 
of the time in Ireland. His father had died during this 
period, and receiving a small legacy from an aunt, Mr. 
Bradlaugh purchased his discharge and returned to London- 
No one familiar with the effects of military life can fail to 
detect them in the manner of the lecturer and agitator. 
His gestures are often as effective a part of his oratory as 
are his words. Those who have heard his vivid presenta- 
tion of the French Revolution, or the other remarkable 
characterization and comparison of Cromwell and Wash- 
ington, both of which were delivered in the United States 
as Lyceum lectures in the winter of 1874-5, will remember 
some of these gestures. One especially where he describes 
the unsheathing of the sword in the revolutionary period 
he portrayed, and during which he draws an imaginary 
weapon, bringing it apparently into the air with the rhyth- 
mical movement of the trained swordsman, must have 
strongly impressed his audiences. Another gesture, which 
indicated the drilled soldier, could be observed when in 



3IO BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

• 
describing Cromwell, he pictured some trait as with a 
rapid dash of a brush on canvas, by swiftly throwing his 
hand to the left hip with the motion required in grasping a 
sword hilt. 

On returning to civil life, Mr. Bradlaugh obtained em- 
ployment as a clerk in the office of a Solicitor. At this 
time, in his writings, he assumed the signature of " Icono- 
clast." The object was to veil his personality ; but he 
could not have expressed it more perfectly. His employer, 
a Mr. Rogers, sturdily refused to interfere with his clerk's 
liberty of conscience or action, only requiring that he 
should not bring polemics into " chambers." Mr. Brad- 
laugh thus acquired a knowledge of common law and stat- 
utory enactments which bear upon the right of public meet- 
ing, printing, writing, petition and other conditions affecting 
his position as a radical agitator, that has been and still is 
of the greatest service to him in the part he plays and the 
place he strives to occupy. Many incidents could be given 
of his successful evasions of restraining law, and of the 
shrewd devices to carry his points, which have marked his 
twenty years of trenchant discussion. His skill in this 
way has been equalled only by that of the greatest agitator 
that has lived since the days of Peter the Hermit — Daniel 
O'Connell. The most notable illustration of this skill and 
the use he has put it to, may be found in his delivery of 
the famous " Impeachment of the House of Brunswick," 
a lecture which is the fiercest philippic and severest indict- 
ment of the reigning Royal family of Great Britain, ever 
made. It must be acknowledged to be an argument of re- 
markable vigor, research and directness. It raised a storm 
of fierce indignation, but the orator held his way without 



CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 3II 

flinching, daring the government to arraign him, as was 
threatened, for treasonable utterances. His argument as 
to the legal right he claimed and has fully exercised, to 
agitate for the repeal of the "Acts of Settlement and 
Union," by which the electors of Hanover became mon- 
archs of Britain, can be best stated in his own words : " It 
is of course assumed, as a point upon which all supporters 
of the present Royal Family will agree, that the right to 
deal with the throne is inalienably vested in the Eng- 
lish people, to be exercised by them through their rep- 
resentatives in Parliament." He proceeds to affirm that 
" the right to succeed to the throne is a right accruing only 
from " the acts alluded to, and that therefore he has the 
same right to discuss the advisability of their repeal as he 
has of other laws. To deny this is to deny the fundamen- 
tal right of control over the Executive power which he 
shows is historically to be the basis of the English system. 
Alluding to the precedents, he says, — evidently having in 
mind a living Heir apparent, — "The Convention which 
assembled at Westminster on January 22d, 1688, took away 
the crown from James II., and passed over his son, the 
then Prince of Wales, as if he had been non-existent. 
This convention was declared to have all the authority of 
Parliament — ergo Parliament has admitted the right to de- 
prive a living King of his crown and to treat a Prince of 
Wales as having no claim to the succession." 

After citing authorities in support of his position, Mr. 
Bradlaugh proceeds to arraign the Royal House on eight 
counts. He declares that with the exception of the present 
Queen, the policy of the family " has been hostile to the 
welfare of the mass of the people." In support of this 



312 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

he gives a formidable array of authorities, citing the per- 
sonal and political offences of which the history of England 
has for a century and a half beerL full. He charges that 
fifteen-sixteenths of the National debt has been created in 
defence of a pro-German policy, and further that royal incom- 
petency has during the Brunswick regime transferred the 
governing power to a few powerful families. A huge pen- 
sion list has been created ; national expenditures frightfully 
increased, America lost to Great Britain, Ireland made 
chronically discontented by bad government, and the burdens 
of taxation have been shifted from the land to the masses- 
He arraigns the Family as proven incapable, in that they 
have not initiated or encouraged wise legislation. The 
first George was a German, could not speak English, des- 
pised his new subjects and cared chiefly for what he made 
from them. The second George cared more for Hanover 
than England, and desired only the joint reputation of 
being a great general and a great libertine. The Third 
was often insane, "and in his officially lucid moments, his 
sanity was more dangerous to England than his madness." 
The Fourth George was a drunkard, debauchee, bad hus- 
band, unnatural son, false friend, unfaithful lover, corrupt 
regent and worse King. His successor William, was nar- 
row-minded, obstinate, bigoted, timid, yielding when " con- 
tinued resistance became dangerous." Mr. Bradlaugh's 
argument is carefully fortified by a long arrayed list of 
authorities and by a curious collection of the lampoon and 
satirical literature of the periods described. 

Another illustration of his acquaintance with English 
laws and precedents, has reference to the allowance made 
the Duke of Edinburgh on the occasion of his marriage 



CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 313 

with the daughter of the Russian Czar. Some indiscreet 
radicals called a meeting in Trafalgar Square to discuss 
the pending measure. The proposed place of meeting is 
within a mile of the Palace of Westminster. It is forbid- 
den to assemble for such purposes within that mile of 
Parliament while it is in session, and considering the prop- 
osition relating to which the meeting was to be called, Mr. 
Bradlaugh advised his friends they could not meet for such 
a purpose, and then headed a deputation to the Home Office, 
where he informed the Secretary that the meeting would 
be held. That functionary, in mild amazement at the au_ 
dacity of his interlocutor, repeated the interdict which 
had already been made public. Mr. Bradlaugh's response 
was that the meeting would be held to petition Her 
Majesty the Queen to provide, in view of the burdens of 
the people, the marriage portion of the Duke from her 
own private purse. The Secretary still repeated his 
interdict, and Mr. Bradlaugh left with his deputation, 
declaring the call a legal one, and that the meeting 
would be held. He stated also very plainly that their 
legal right would be defended by resistance to any in- 
terference. The meeting was held and no interruption 
occurred. Still another illustration may be given of his 
ability. After several unsuccessful attempts to prevent 
the mass meetings in Hyde Park, which have been so 
common of late years, Mr. Ayrton, Commissioner in charge 
of Public Works and Parks, under the Gladstone admin- 
istration of 1869, brought in a bill to effect that closing of 
the parks, — the inability to do which under then existing 
legislation had been clearly shown. The right of meet- 
ing was not so much involved, as a larger principle — that 

14 



314 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

of whether or not the Crown Lands, of which the Parks 
are part, are personally seized to the reigning monarch ; 
Mr. Bradlaugh and friends claiming that they always were 
public property, accessible to the people whenever they so 
desired. Finding the bill referred to was likely to slip 
through, Mr. Bradlaugh availed himself of a long disused 
privilege which he found in the books, and presented 
through Mr. Denman, now a leading judge, a petition to 
be heard at the Bar of the House, on the ground that his 
rights and privileges as a citizen were to be invaded by 
the act against which he desired to protest. The petition 
was not granted, but the Park measure was not pushed 
to a second reading. 

The religious position of Mr. Bradlaugh has greatly 
obscured his political reputation with the general public, 
and has made the judgment of his opponents harsher 
than it would otherwise be. In part his extreme position 
is\lue to the logical directness which is a characteristic of 
his intellect, but the truculent and sometimes irreverent 
nature of his advocacy (for he is no respecter of persons) 
can be traced more directly to the bitter social and per- 
sonal ostracism which followed, in his earlier years, the 
avowed advocacy of skeptical opinions. When to that 
advocacy was added attacks on existing institutions, es- 
pecially vigorous ones on the church, marked according to 
popular rumor by want of taste and bitter assault, it must 
be acknowledged that the winning of recognition has been 
an arduous task indeed. To understand fully Mr. Brad- 
laugh's character, it must be also remembered, that in 
earlier manhood, the law made him a pariah, refusing his 
testimony in courts, holding him subject to pains and pen- 



CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 315 

alties as a " blasphemer." though this law has not been 
enforced since the imprisonment of George Jacob 
Holyoake, in 1844-5, on such a charge. Even now there 
are on the British statute books several acts, the enforce- 
ment of which would surely bring penalties and disa- 
bilities to those who are honestly heretical, or are openly 
known as " freethinkers." Mr. Bradlaugh himself, having 
been compelled by business misfortunes to become a 
bankrupt, was at first debarred from obtaining the benefit 
of the laws in such cases made and provided, and com- 
pelled at a large cost, to create public interest and agita- 
tion, sufficient to ensure attention for his petition to Par- 
liament and secure a repeal of the disability. It should 
be stated to his credit that he has since, though not legally 
held, paid every dollar of the debts that were then com- 
pounded. 

In the same way he had to fight, in 1870-71, an at- 
tempt to revive against his journal, the National Reformer, 
the penalties of a law long obsolete. He was con- 
victed and a fine— a fine whose total would have beggared 
a millionaire — imposed for each copy published ; from this 
decision he appealed, being his own lawyer, and practi- 
cally gained a victory ; the government breaking down at 
last on an attempt to fasten his connection with a certain 
issue and date. Here again his knowledge of law served 
him in good stead. The costs however amounted to about 
seven hundred pounds. 

But in all probability, the animating impulse in the career 
of Mr. Bradlaugh as a skeptical writer and agitator, has 
been the political status of the established church, mak- 
ing it part of a system by which he considers the people 



31 6 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

oppressed and plundered. He once expressed this in a 
remarkable peroration to a lecture he delivered in reply to 
a book of the Bishop of Lincoln, when in defending him- 
self from the charge of wantonly outraging religious be- 
liefs and sentiments, he declared that such charge was 
false, affirming that he must express the truth as he under- 
stood it, and that he was compelled to resist institutions 
through which " the shadow of the Prelate's palace rotted 
the thatch on the Peasant's cottage." 

In 1858, Mr. Bradlaugh became the President of the 
London Secular Society, in place of Mr. Holyoake, who 
was occupied with his general labor as a journalist and his 
special work on behalf of co-operation. When the Secu- 
larists formed a National Society, Mr. Bradlaugh became 
its President, a position he still fills. This remarkable 
movement requires some further reference, in order to a 
better understanding of the influences which sustain its 
leader. The National Association of " Secularists" in its 
declaration of principles, considers "the promotion of Hu- 
man Improvement and Happiness" to be "the highest 
duty ; " holds that current, theological teachings, are "ob- 
structive " of the same ; that in order to effectually pro- 
mote both, every individual "ought to be well placed and 
instructed," and all of a suitable age "ought to be usefully 
employed for their own and the general good ; " that civil 
and religious liberty are necessary, and that therefore 
every member must consider it a duty " to actively attack 
all barriers to equal freedom of thought and utterance for 
all. upon political and theological subjects." Among other 
objects it declares the following programme for political 
agitation: 1st. Secular education; 2d. Disestablishment 



CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 317 

and disendowment of the State Church ; 3d. Improve- 
ment of the Agricultural Laborers condition ; 4th. A change 
in the Land Laws, so as to secure for the laborer an in- 
terest in the soil he cultivates ; 5th. Abolition of the 
hereditary House of Peers and substitution of a National 
Senate with life members ; and 6th. Investigation of the 
causes of poverty in old countries; plans of amelioration 
proposed, with the laws governing the increase of popu- 
lation and produce, as well as the laws affecting the rise 
and fall of wages. 

What is the general estimation of Secularism is thus 
stated by a recent author, himself a clergyman of the es- 
tablished church and vicar of Rochdale, John Bright's 
home. " Secularism is the study of promoting human wel- 
fare by material means, measuring human welfare by the 
utilitarian rules, and making the service of others a duty 
of life. Secularism relates to the present existence of 
man, and to action ; the issues of which can be tested by 
the experience of this life ; having for its object the de- 
velopment of the physical, moral, and intellectual nature 
of man to the highest perceivable point as the immediate 
duty of society; inculcating the practical sufficiency of 
natural morality apart from Atheism, Theism, or Chris- 
tianity ; engaging its adherents in the promotion of human 
improvement by material means, and making these agree- 
ments the ground of common unity for all who would 
regulate life by reason, and ennoble it by service. The 
secular is sacred in its influence on life ; for by purity of 
material conditions the loftiest natures are best sustained, 
and the lower the most surely elevated. Secularism is a 
series of principles, intended for the guidance of those who 



3 l8 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

find theology indefinite, or inadequate, or deem it unre- 
liable. It replaces theology, which mainly regards life as 
a sinful necessity, as a scene of tribulation through which 
we pass to a better world. Secularism rejoices in this life 
and regards it as the sphere of those duties which edu- 
cate men to fitness for any future and better life, should 
such transpire. Secularism is in fact the religion of doubt. 
It does not necessarily clash with other religions ; it does 
not deny the existence of God or even the truth of Chris- 
tianity : but it does not profess to believe in either one or 
the other. " # 

There are a considerable number of local societies, 
active or passive — the organization allowing both classes — 
and an active and skilful propaganda is maintained, the 
more especially since Mr. Bradlaugh has been enabled 
through its agency to create a respectable Republican agi- 
tation. Most of the secular Societies are also Republican 
Clubs. Mr. Bradlaugh is President of the principal one — 
that of London. Its objects are briefly defined in the 
secular publication already referred to, as being besides 
that of bringing together persons of the same opinions, 
''to promote (by intellectual, legal, and moral means only,) 
all efforts in Parliament, on platforms, and in the Press, 
in harmony with Republican principles ; and to teach the 
best system of civil government amongst mankind." It 
affirms that " the word ' Republic ' shall signify a common- 
wealth, a state, or a unity of states, in which public affairs 
are managed by persons appointed by the people ; and in 
which the exercise of the Sovereign power is placed in 

* Rev. W. M. Molesworth's •' History of England from 1830 to 
1874." 



CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 319 

representatives freely elected by the people," — and then de- 
clares its motto to be "Ballots, not Bullets." It is worthy 
of notice at this point, that in Mr. Bradlaugh's meetings, as 
in most connected with the Republican agitation of which 
he is recognized as leader, disturbances have come from 
those who sustain the existing order of things in the Brit- 
ish Empire. 

In connection with his political career, it may be stated 
that the charges of "Communism," "Red Republicanism" 
and "Revolutionist," which are freely made against him, 
are not sustained by his writings and speeches. In po- 
litical economy he belongs to the Malthusian school, and 
at his best in that sense, is a strict disciple of John Stuart 
Mill. His land propositions are by no means as sweep- 
ing as those which the great Prussian statesman, Baron 
Stein, inagurated in 1814 for the lasting benefit of his own 
country. It is not until within the past three or four years 
that Mr. Bradlaugh has been in any way identified with 
trie Labor movement, as strictly understood in England. 
Even that connection has been a political one. He does 
not hesitate to express a doubt whether combination can 
permanently raise the rate of wages, though he has always 
advocated the right to combine. The " Miners' National 
Union," and that of Northumberland, as well as the "Ag- 
ricultural Laborers' Union" are those whose demonstra- 
tions Mr. Bradlaugh has attended, — and only there by invi- 
tation, — for as he has recently stated, it is not his desire to 
saddle them with such odium as rests upon himself in 
consequence of antagonism to the ordinary faiths. 

As a politician Mr. Bradlaugh's activity did not fully 
begin until the civil war in the United States divided pub- 



320 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

lie opinion between the North and the South. During the 
ten years preceding, there had been no marked move- 
ment in radical politics, and most of the speeches made 
by him, bearing on other than his special topics, were in 
connection with the Italian movement, and in support of 
Mazzini and Garibaldi. During this time he first visited 
the continent and began to be intimately known to French 
radicals and republicans. Naturally Mr. Bradlaugh placed 
himself at the outset, on the side of the American Union. 
He also began to write and lecture upon the Labor and 
Church questions in Ireland, and when the Reform League 
of 1864-5 and-6, was organized under the presidency 
of Mr. Edmund Beales, he became one of the Vice Presi- 
dents and a member of the Executive Council. 

From this date forward Mr/Bradlaugh's public career 
has been more essentially political, and his name has be- 
come known as that of a Republican leader. Allusion 
has been made to his trial for publishing the National Re- 
former, contrary to law. A brief autobiographical sketch 
thus details the circumstances : — 

" In 1868 I entered into a contest with the Conservative Govern- 
ment which, having been continued by the Gladstone Government, 
finished in 1869 with a complete victory for myself. According to the 
then law every newspaper was required to give sureties to the extent 
of ^"800 against blasphemous or seditious libel. I had never offered 
to give these sureties, as they would have probably been liable to for- 
feiture about once a month. In March, 186S, the Disraeli Govern- 
ment insisted on my compliance with the law. I refused. The Gov- 
ernment then required me to stop my paper. I printed on the next 
issue, ' Printed in Defiance of Her Majesty's Government.' I was 
then served with an Attorney-General's information, containing numer- 
ous counts, and seeking to recover enormous penalties. I determined 
to be my own barrister, and white availing myself, in consultation, of 



CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 32 I 

the best legal advice, I always argued my own case. The interlocutory 
hearings before the Judges in Chambers were numerous, for I took 
objection to nearly every step made by the government, and I nearly 
always succeeded. I also brought the matter before the Parliament, 
being specially backed in this by Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. John Stuart 
Milh and Mr. E. H. J. Crawfurd. When the information was called 
on for trial in a crowded court before Mr. Baron Martin, the Govern- 
ment backed out, and declined to make a jury ; so the prosecution fell 
to the ground. Strange to say, it was renewed by the Gladstone Gov- 
ernment, who had the coolness to offer me, by the mouth of Attorney- 
General Collier, that they would not enforce any penalties if I would 
stop the paper, and admit that I was in the wrong. This I declined, 
and the prosecution now came on for trial before Baron Bramwell and 
a special jury. Against me were the Attorney-General, Sir R. Collier, 
the Solicitor-General, Sir J. D. Coleridge, and Mr. Crompton Hutton. 
I found that these legal worthies were blundering in their conduct of 
the trial, and at nisi prius I let them obtain a verdict, which, however, 
I reversed on purely technical grounds, after a long argument, which 
I sustained before Lord Chief Baron Kelly and a full court sitting in 
Banco. Having miserably failed to enforce the law against me, the 
government repealed the statute, and I can boast that I got rid of the 
last shackle of the obnoxious English press laws. Mr. J. S. Mill 
wrote me : ' You have gained a very honorable success in obtaining a 
repeal of the mischevious Act by your persevering resistance.' The 
government, although beaten, refused to reimburse me any portion of 
the large outlay incurred in fighting them." 

In 1868, Mr. Bradlaugh contested the Borough of 
Northampton, polling nearly a thousand votes. He has 
twice since then contested the same borough, receiving 
each time a larger vote. The last poll showed over 1700, 
and there is little doubt of his achieving his election ere 
long. 

The canvasses as conducted by him have been quite 
characteristic. If assailed by his opponents, whether as 
to religious opinions or personal character, he at once re- 
14* 21 



32 2 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

torted, not denying the first and replying to the latter. 
As most of these have been mere slanders, his retorts 
have been bitter and denunciatory. He recently refused 
to become the recognized Liberal candidate for Northamp- 
ton at the next vacancy, unless it was arranged that the 
person who held that position at the last contest and who 
was guilty of making a libellous charge against himself, 
should be withdrawn from any further candidacy. It had 
been proposed to run them on the same ticket. Mr. Brad- 
laugh makes a practice of demanding retraction on entering 
a libel suit against any person or journal that make charges 
of a personal character. 

During the latter part of the Franco-Prussian war, after 
decheance had been proclaimed, Mr. Bradlaugh, with Dr. 
Congreve, Prof. Beesly, and other leading Positivists in Eng- 
land, organized a movement in sympathy with Republican 
France, for services in which he received from Tours 
a flattering letter signed by Leon Gambetta, Adolphe 
Cremieux, and Admiral Fourdichon, and endorsed by 
Emmanuel Arago. Since then his connection with the Con- 
tinental Republican movements has been quite conspicu- 
ous, and in France his advice is sought for by persons of 
great prominence. He is among those who fully believe 
in the sincerity of the Republican declarations of Napo- 
leon Joseph Bonaparte, the " Red Prince," as he is termed, 
with whom he is on terms of close intimacy. 

In the summer of 1873, Mr. Bradlaugh visited Madrid, 
taking with him an address to the Spanish Republican 
leaders. He passed through a portion of Spain in which 
the Carlists were operating and was made a prisoner at a 
place where the train was stopped. Fortunately for him 



CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 323 

his person was unknown to them and they allowed him to 
pass unmolested, evidently believing him bearer of des- 
patches to the English Minister or something equally im- 
portant. At Madrid a banquet was given to him, and in 
a carefully arranged speech made in French, he defined a 
policy, surprising his hearers, and those who read it after- 
wards, by the moderate course he advocated for his own 
guidance. He there declared that Republics could not 
exist without Republicans, and that if he was able then to 
make a Republic in England he would not do it, because 
a course of political education not yet had, was absolutely 
essential to its permanence. 

In his National Reformer of. June 27, 1875, Mr. Brad- 
laugh, in a very severe castigation of the well-known Dr. 
Kenealy, growing out of an attack made first while the 
editor was lecturing in America and repeated after his re- 
turn, both in Kenealy's paper, The Englishman, and before 
his constitutents, thus replies to a charge that he advocates 
a " Red Republic," one " of Blood," a " Republic to cut 
off the head of the Queen and the Prince of Wales," &c. 

" I have never advocated a Republic of force, violence, or blood. 
I have never advocated any sort of vengeance against the Monarch or 
the Heir Apparent. While I have tried, and do try, to induce through- 
out England a Republican feeling and Republican hope, I have 
always, both here by tongue and pen, and in Spain by my tongue, and 
in France by my pen, and in America by tongue and pen — taught the 
doctrine that you can never make a Republic by killing a King, but 
that you must do it by gradually building up, through years of educa- 
tion, the brains and hopes of the people." 

During the winters of 1873 and '74 Mr. Bradlaugh has 
become widely known to the American people. He was 
denounced at first by a few journals, one of them speak- 



324 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

ing of him, before he lectured in the city of its publica- 
tion, as a " thorough-paced bully." Since then the same 
journal has complimented highly a lecture on the " Land 
and Labor " question, expressing editorial surprise at the 
moderation of the orator's views. In general his recep- 
tion must have been satisfactory to himself, and the com- 
ments of the press are favorable. One journal describes 
him on the platform as having " not a particle of the 
peculiar English hesitation and embarrassment, his words 
flowing in a smooth, uninterrupted current with a prompt- 
ness quite American, and with an eloquence and fervor 
quite inspiring. His diction, also, is that of a man of cul- 
ture and study, though he says that he had no advantages 
of college education, and is, in fact, a poor man, rough and 
common — like the mass of the people from whom he 
sprang, and for whose rights he pleads." Another 
describes him as about " six feet high, of fine commanding 
figure, magnetic voice, and a hand that has a world of 
changeful expression in itself. Whatever may be said of 
Bradlaugh's sentiments, it cannot be denied that he 
has the charm and grace of the orator." Charles Sumner 
and Wendell Phillips have declared him to be of the most 
remarkable type of English speakers. A correspondent 
describes him in a Western paper, as an orator for " the 
out-of-door, with a voice that harmonizes with those of 
nature. It has a resonant ring in it, somewhat like the 
blare of the brass of which the German military instru- 
ments are made, the peculiar penetrating quality of which 
every one who has heard them will not fail to recall." 
Mr. Bradlaugh speaks naturally and with great ease, his 
impromptus being as finished as his prepared efforts. A 



CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 325 

little speech made in response to a call at a woman's suf- 
frage meeting in Boston, exhibits this and will bear quoting 
in part. After saying that he only rose in response to the 
call, and would speak but briefly, Mr. Bradlaugh said : — 

" There are only two grounds on which the exercise of individual 
suffrage can be claimed or denied. The first is that of right, the 
second that of expediency. I have long since eliminated the latter 
from my mind, and the former furnishes no sex distinctions. It is not 
a national question, it is a human one. All humanity have equal in- 
terest in its solution." 

He then referred to the agitation in England, and said 
that he had always favored it on this ground : — 

" That those who have to obey laws should have the opporl unity 
of expressing consent to the legislation ; on the ground urged by Pym 
and Hampden, and later by Chatham for yourselves, that a govern- 
ment has no right to put its hand in the pocket of a citizen who has no 
voice in its creation nor of control in its conduct. He was for woman's 
suffrage in no pretended spirit of chivalry or mockery of desire to as- 
sist a sex inferior in intellectual ability : he was in favor of it as a duty 
and a right. The sex which had its Hypatia, whose intellect and 
humanity stood out clear and bright in the world's then dark pages, 
need hardly even give as proofs of its efficiency the many brilliant 
stars which have so often shone, despite the clouds custom had hung 
to obscure woman's cause." 



XIX. 

George Odger. 




USTIN MCCARTHY writing of " Republican- 
ism in England," # describes the meeting of sym- 
pathy for the French Republic held in Trafalgar 
Square, a place which, like Hyde Park, is often the scene 
of the great Radical gatherings that have of late years 
grown so common in England. McCarthy says : u The 
great political leaders never make their voices heard at 
Trafalgar Square ; but Trafalgar Square makes its voice 
heard by all parties." He refers to this particular meet- 
ing at length, using it as a text by which to illustrate the 
growth of Republican ideas. " The meaning of the thing " 
he says " was plain, let who would pretend to ignore, or 
to deny, or to despise it." The meaning was that the 
vast majority of the intelligent working men of London 
are thoroughly, earnestly, and even passionately repub- 
lican. Farther on he describes a small meeting held for 

*The Galaxy, July, 187 1. 



GEORGE ODGER. 



327 



deliberative purposes. Leaders of the working class were 
there, and so also were representative thinkers of the 
Positivist and other schools. " But the sentiment of 
the meeting was just the same as that of Trafalgar 
Square." It is not inappropriate, before proceeding to 
personal reference to Mr. Odger and his representa- 
tive position, to give what Justin McCarthy says as to 
the ideas of Democracy entertained by the class of whom 
Mr. Odger may fairly be regarded as the most marked 
representative. 

"The London artisan, always rather intelligent and 
always inclined to radicalism, is to-day a man well read in 
the politics of his time, highly practical in all his objects, 
well drilled into the discipline of co-operation and organ- 
ization by his Trades' Unions, and as little inclined to 
rave of social contracts or demand re-distribution of 
property as Horace Greeley would be. He means what 
he says ; he knows what he is talking about. When he 
throws up his hat for a republic, he has not the remotest 
expectation that a republic would make him rich or place 
the property of his wealthy neighbor at his disposal. But 
he has acquired a clear and strong conviction that a 
republican government is the fairest, the cheaj^est, and 
the best political system, and he sees plainly the real, 
not the imaginary defects and sins of the system which 
surrounds him." Of the " Trades' Union " to which Mr. 
McCarthy attributes a large degree of this republican 
spirit, he says ; " Its own organization is essentially repub- 
lican. It has been hitherto an association formed virtu- 
ally outside the English constitution and with no protec- 
tion from English law. It has looked royalty in the face, 



328 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

and seen there was nothing divine there ; it has counted 
how much kings and queens cost, and found they were 
not worth the money. Of late, too, the London working- 
man has discovered he counts for something. He has 
been called into council with the great political leader, or 
the great, aristocrat, and he sees they are only men like 
himself. * * ■* By his brains and his own strength he 
fought his way upward." 

Since these words were ' written, working men, as such,, 
have entered the English House of Commons. The next 
general election, whether it comes soon, or shall be long 
delayed, will see a considerable increase in their number. 
It is quite probable that such a result may induce the 
" territorial " liberals, as the whig families have been 
named, to allow Mr. Disraeli a longer term of office than 
would otherwise be probable, on the principle of — " after 
us, the deluge." 

One of the foremost men in bringing about the repub- 
lican growth, which no impartial and clear-sighted obsei ver 
can fail to see in England, is George Odger, a London 
shoemaker, and one who, were he ten or fifteen years 
younger than he is, might fairly see open before him pros- 
pects of marked honors in the future and more democratic 
life, on which his country is entering. Mr. Odger is 
spoken of " as one of the very ablest and best among the 
working-men leaders." # He is an avowed Republican, 
and shares with Mr. Bradlaugh the leadership of such 
movement in that direction as openly organizes itself. It 
might not be proper to say that Mr. Odger is the foremost 

* Justin McCarthy, Galaxy , July, 187 1. 



GEORGE ODGER. 329 

leader ; but it is certainly true that Mr. Bradlaugh's con- 
stituency would be small to-day, if he had not been pre- 
ceded by George Jacob Holyoake in the organization 
of the Secularist movement, and by George Odger in 
the early federation and consolidation of the Trades' 
Societies, lifting them out of merely local and class impor_ 
tance into a distinct social, political and economical 
force. George Odger fairly represents the modern / 
British artisan, in the same sense that Joseph Arch must 
be regarded as the representative of the agricultural) 
Laborer, of whom Mr. McCarthy wrote in the same 
sketch from which quotations have already been made, 
that — " Of the mental condition of the English peasant, 
the laborer in the fields, who ought to be at least the peer 
of the artisan in the towns, I hesitate to speak in language 
which would seem to be adequate lest I should appear 
guilty of gross exaggeration. I doubt if any country in the 
civilized world has a class among its people so stupid, so 
ignorant, so debased in the passive sense, as the English 
agricultural laborer. # # # For the present the agri- 
cultural workers may be set down in politics simply as a 
torpid mass, as incapable either of individual or collective 
action, even in their own interests, as the pigs and the 
oxen who are their familiar companions." Yet this same 
class, within ten months of the publication of the foregoing, 
startled England with an organized movement as memor- 
able in character and extent as any of the greatest popu- 
lar efforts that preceded it. Within two years it com- 
manded the voices of Francis Newman and Cardinal Man- 
ning; of Professor Fawcett and Charles Bradlaugh j of the 
Earl of Shaftesbury and John Bright ; and in less than four 



330 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

years after Mr. McCarthy had written, that — " these 
men have no vote, and I hardly think the most ardent up- 
holder of extended suffrage could find much cause to 
desire the immediate extension of the suffrage to them" — 
the bill to give them that suffrage was supported in the 
House of Commons by speeches from Trevelyan, Bright, 
Fawcett, Taylor, Dilke, Mundella, Lubbock, Brassey, Mor- 
ley, Lord Montague and others, and received 167 votes in 
its favor. The rate of social progress is growing rapidly 
in England, and it is not safe to forecast without a clear 
apprehension of the conditions. 

George Odger was born in 1829, at the little village of 
Roubro', lying between Plymouth and Tavistock, in the 
County of Devon, and is now in his fifty-fifth year. His 
father, John Odger, was a native of Cornwall and a miner. 
The son was born in penury, and habituated to toil from 
his earliest years. His boyish education was limited to 
the rustic "dame school" of his native hamlet, and hardly 
reached to the dignity of the " three R's — reading, 'riting 
and 'rithmetic." At about ten years of age, he began to 
learn the shoemaker's trade, and he continued to follow it 
regularly, until in his earlier manhood he became so noted 
a Trades' Leader, that employers marked him as a man not 
to be hired if it was possible to avoid it. This in the 
elementary days of the English labor agitation is reported 
to have been a favorite means of punishing workmen who 
became too conspicuous as leaders. There are a score of 
men now in radical politics there, who have been made prom 
inent by the influence of such a policy. The craft Mr. 
Odger followed has always been noted for its tendency to 
produce strong and reflective men. Its sedentary charac- 



GEORGE ODGER. 33 I 

ter probably helps study and reflection, where the mind 
naturally turns that way. Certain it is, that Mr. Odger 
began early to read and study, and before he had arrived 
at manhood he became a local celebrity both as writer and 
speaker. He did not remain long in his native place, but 
travelled to the large towns, seeking and obtaining work, 
learning men and affairs, and at last settling in London, 
when about twenty years of age. He was soon known as 
an expert workman at his trade, and is to-day regarded as 
one of the very best in the English metropolis. Until very 
recently, at least, he worked quite regularly at his trade, 
though not entirely dependent upon it as a source of in- 
come. His extensive and accurate knowledge of English 
working life, and his power both as writer and speaker are 
generally sufficient to command all his time and return 
sufficient remuneration for his moderate habits, — enabling 
him also to serve the causes for which he has always strug- 
gled. The Contemporary Review of 1870 and 187 1, publish- 
ed several able articles from his pen, on the Land ques- 
tion, the Labor Law, Representation, and similar topics. 
It was in London that he first became prominent as a 
Trades' Unionist, but in a spirit more sagacious and liberal 
than generally prevailed at the time. The introduction of 
machinery into the cord-wain ers' shops created, as is apt 
to be the case at first, violent opposition on the part of 
the operatives. Mr. Odger openly opposed this folly 
and was able to make his associates accept his views. He 
first became widely known by his active work in organiz- 
ing the movements which dated from the great lock-out 
in 185 1, by engineer and iron manufacturing firms of 
nearly or quite 30,000 workmen. This was in consequence 



332 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

of the determination of the Amalgamated Engineers, the 
strongest union of skilled artisans then or now in existence, 
to demand the abolition of piece-work and some other de- 
tails. The result that followed was seen first in the 
consolidation of local societies or unions belonging to the 
same trade into general unions ; next in the amalgamation 
of the trades belonging to a related group into a larger 
body. The Engineer Union already mentioned is an ex- 
ample. It is, as originally formed, one of eight or ten 
different Trades' Societies. Next came the effort towards 
federation, with which Mr. Odger has been most closely 
identified. It manifested itself first in efforts to form 
delegate councils in large towns and boroughs or other 
centers of industry, then in extending these till they em- 
brace a whole district, like the potteries of Staffordshire 
or the collieries of Yorkshire and Durham. Then came 
the convening of an annual Trades Conference or Congress, 
and later still the remarkable organization known as " the 
International Working Men's Association." In both of 
these latter movements, Mr. Odger may fairly be regarded 
as a leading mind and organizing brain. He was connec- 
ted with the " International " until when, after the close 
of the Paris commune rebellion, it felt itself obliged, on 
account of the position it had borne thereto, to assume 
the role of a political conspiracy instead of continuing as 
it had been, an open and avowed, but peaceful propaganda 
for social, economic and political changes, great in their 
scope and startling perhaps in their significance. George 
Odger appears from the first of the movements thus out- 
lined, to have worked with a clear and definite apprehen- 
sion of the end in view— that of organizing labor, so that 



GEORGE ODGER. 333 

it would not only demand more wages, but in the end 
require and compel the organization of a better economic 
system, through the operations of which a more equitable 
distribution of results should be attained. He also aimed 
at the political enfranchisement of his class, and to that 
end he has never failed to advise that their associations 
should, through their larger and delegated assemblies, take 
a decided political position. His speeches at the several 
Trades' Conferences and Congresses he has served in, from 
those at Sheffield and Preston sixteen years or so ago to 
the last, held in Liverpool, April, 1875, a ^ advocate these 
views. A student of this remarkable phase of English 
radical politics, cannot fail to see that Mr. Odger's per- 
ceptions of the character of the force with which he was 
then dealing, as well as its relations to the general interests 
of the nation whereof he was a member, fairly entitled him 
to be regarded as possessing a great deal of philosophical 
and statesmanlike insight. 

In 1859 he first became more generally known to the 
London artisans, by his service on a general committee 
appointed to aid the building-trades' workmen, then on 
strike to the number of 10,000, for a reduction of the hours 
from ten to nine per day. In any part of the United 
States, unless it might be Pennsylvania, it would be diffi- 
cult for one to realise the sort of excitement .that such an 
event could then produce in London and indirectly on the 
whole of England, the circumstance even assuming a politi- 
cal character. Great meetings were held in Hyde Park. 
The police were used to watch the strikers or to protect 
the " blacklegs," as those are called who work outside the 
Union movement. It was a common thing for men to be 



334 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

arrested for posting placards or distributing hand bills, 
while Parliament was besought to enact special legislation 
against the strikers. Mr. Odger was one of the active ad- 
visers of the latter class. His association with the Trades' 
Societies and the movement born of them has extended 
over nearly forty years. For many years he has been a 
member of the London Trades' Council, and until within 
a year or two has occupied the position of secretary. 

It was this body, under the presidency of George Potter, 
editor of the London Beehive — who, like Mr. Odger, was also 
a member of the Executive Council of the Reform League 
— that induced the London Unions to abandon their policy 
of abstention from organized political agitations, and act 
on the advice of John Bright. They appeared in 1866 in a 
great street procession and meeting, 30,000 strong, in sup- 
port of the popular demand for household suffrage. The 
effect of that demonstration was quite notable, and the 
London press for days after the procession had marched 
through the principal streets of the fashionable West End, 
teemed with half-frightened references to its military, 
aspect, good marching, admirable order, well closed column 
and complete discipline. 

This energy and activity combined with his very, 
decided ability have kept Mr. Odger in the very front 
rank of agitation for at least a quarter of a century. 
During the decade between 1850 and i860, when the Eng- 
lish artisan was chiefly engaged in social and economic 
efforts, he was usually a member of delegations sent from 
bodies to petition or remonstrate with the Ministry in pow- 
er on different measures that were pending. It is stated 
that Mr. Odger at one of these deputations strongly attracted 



GEORGE ODGER. 



335 



ed the notice of Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the 
Exechequer under Lord Palmerston's premiership. The 
occasion was a bill offered by the Government in regard to 
Friendly Societies. He was engaged in perfecting a series 
of fiscal and ameliorative measures, whose results have 
proven widely beneficial, especially to the working class. 
But every measure offered by the Palmerston Government 
was regarded by the working-men with suspicion, because 
of the fact that Lord Palmerston had promised a reform 
bill and then failed to fulfil his* pledges. The particular 
bill which caused the sending of a deputation was designed 
to strengthen the societies, but some details were objection- 
able. Mr. Gladstone, who is reported to be much more 
friendly in his reception of such deputations than is com- 
mon, took the opportunity of inquiring why such distrust 
prevailed of his own and colleagues, intentions, among 
those whom Mr. Odger represented. The Finance Minis- 
ter was asked at once, — if he wanted a full and free answer ? 
He replied affirmatively, of course. Mr. Odger replied — • 
because the workmen had been betrayed. An animated 
discussion ensued. A few nights after Mr. Gladstone 
declared in the Commons in substance what the Radical 
Odger had affirmed — that it was the duty of those who f 
keep the people out of the exercise of their right of repre- I 
sentation, to give reasons for the wisdom and good policy 
of their acts. Mr. Gladstone spoke warmly and created 
some debate. It has been stated that Mr. Gladstone has 
since that day frequently had occasion to consult Mr. Odger, 
whose accurate knowledge of the working men's movements 
and wishes, has probably been of great value to the Lib- 
eral statesman. 



336 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Mr. Odger's connection with the " International Work- 
ing Men's Association," began with the very first steps of 
that movement, in its organized form. The first proposi- 
tion advanced for a general confederation of Laboi, based 
on the assumption that its interests were necessarily at war 
with the current economic system, came from Dr. Karl 
Marx and Frederic Engel, two well-known German po- 
litical refugees residing in London, who just before the out- 
break of the French Revolution in 1848, issued an address 
setting forth their view of the historical-social development, 
and predicting that labor or production, as a controlling 
power, must take the place of the trading or commercial 
spirit. This document, a very remarkable one in its ability 
and purpose, was translated into English. No organiza- 
tion was made. Nothing was attempted until, in 1864, the 
leading English Unionists, of whom Mr. Odger was fore- 
most, became converts to the plan long urged by Dr. Marx 
who had returned to London after the Republican disas- 
ters of 1844, of organizing an International Society. The 
practical result at which the Englishmen aimed was, by ar- 
riving at a common understanding with Continental work- 
men, to prevent their being ignorantly used by English 
employers to replace their native workmen when a " strike'' 
or "lockout" was in progress. This was the view first put 
forward by the English advocates. A meeting was con- 
vened at St. Martin's Hotel, September 28, 1864, at which 
Mr. Odger was a prominent speaker. It was at a time too,when 
a Polish agitation was in progress, and this lent some further 
interest to the movement. It is not necessary to follow 
the progress of this famous bug-bear, for such it was to the 
Conservative influences of the old world. The facts given 



GEORGE ODGER. 337 

as to its origin have been verified by original document, 
and personal knowledge. In England the movement al- 
ways had, up to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian wars 
a Trades' Union aspect. So also in Belgium to a certain 
extent. In France, Germany and elsewhere, repressive 
attempts made it political. Its platform made in 1S65, at 
the first Congress it held in Geneva, expresses in simpler 
form than can be found elsewhere, the underlying ideas of 
the Democratic-Socialist movement, evidence of the deep 
seated character of which is everywhere visible in Europe 
— if not so plainly in the United States. The movement 
was an open one, though of course its policy and methods 
were not usually proclaimed. As George J. Eccarius, its 
able general Secretary for several years, once tersely said 
— " The people agitate ; they do not conspire." Of course, 
he added — "We are the People." Mr. Odger remained 
a member of the general Council until 1872, when 
with most of the English sections and leaders he retired. 
Since then the " International" seems to have become 
almost as shadowy an affair as the famous Italian 
Carbonari. The English artisan has but little time for 
Utopian efforts, and those who lead them must not go so 
far in advance as to be lost in a mist. 

During the American civil war, Mr. Odger was one of 
the most untiring advocates of the Union cause to be 
found in England. This fact and the exertions he made were 
of considerable benefit to the cause he espoused. The 
London artisans were more inclined than some of their 
provincial friends, to accept the theory that the Southern 
states were simply fighting for independence, and the 
Northern for empire. The agents of the South expended 
15 22 



33^ BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

a great deal of money and labor in the effort to increase 
and spread this view, especially when, in the latter part of 
1862, the policy of raising the Southern blockade by Great 
Britain for the purpose of obtaining cotton was persist- 
ently agitated and met with some favor. The plan of 
those interested was to obtain a demand from the working 
classes, on the score of the sufferings created' among the 
mill operatives by the cotton famine. No class opposed 
this so bitterly and effectively as the operatives themselves. 
The allies of the South were never able to hold, in the 
cotton district, a free public meeting to advocate their 
policy — the workmen invaribly taking control and passing 
Union resolutions. In London however they seemed to 
be making headway. Mr. Oclger, Mr. George Howell, Mr. 
Thomas Mottershead, Mr. W. R. Cramer, and some others 
of the leading Trades' Unionists, devoted themselves to 
the work of opposing this policy. Their labors were great, 
and tl>ey were made at a sacrifice, as the advocates were 
poor. It was stated that at one time, the Southern agents, 
having bought the advocacy of one of the only two 
avowedly democratic weekly, newspapers in London, had 
arranged the same purchase in the case of the other. Mr. 
Oclger, who was a member of its Board of Directors, heard 
of the negotiations. There was an unpaid mortgage on 
the property. The facts were laid before Bazley Potter, 
M. P., and other friends of the Union ; the money was 
found for Mr. Odger to take up the mortgage with, and at 
the business meeting called to consummate the bargain 
with the confederate agents, Mr. Odger announced that 
he held the controlling position. It was to this gentleman 
and his colleagues that the convening of the first public 



GEORGE ODGER. 339 

meeting of London workingmen in behalf of the Union 
was due. That meeting was the famous one held at St. 
James Hall, March 26, 1863, at which John Bright made 
one of the most memorable of the many remarkable 
speeches he delivered on the "American Question." 
This great meeting, practically turned the tide in the 
British House of Commons ; — Mr. Bright followed up 
his address there, the very next night in the House, with a 
vigorous assault on the resolution of confederate recog- 
nition offered by Mr. Lindsay, which had been for some 
time pending, and practically caused its defeat. This 
broke the back of Southern sympathy in Great Britain. 
To Mr. Odger personally, who presided at St. James' 
Hall, very much of the success was due. He and his 
friends were but a small band — but they roused the Trades' 
Unions from indifference' to active sympathy. It was the 
first public demonstration those bodies had ever col- 
lectively made on a question not related to their own 
affairs. So doubtful were Mr. Odger and his friends, 
that, as is related by one of them, they were almost 
afraid when within a few blocks of the Hall, to go on. 
They dreaded lest it should be a failure, or should prove 
to be in the hands of an hostile crowd. But to their great 
pleasure they found the large hall filled to overflowing, and 
enough unable to enter, to make a goodly out-of-door meet- 
ing. The expenses of this meeting were all advanced by 
these poor men, though they were afterwards reimbursed. 

Such incidents and facts illustrate the character of Mr. 
Odger's work and position as a public man. Soon after the 
cessation of the Reform League agitation, he identified 
himself with an avowed Republican movement, in support 



34-0 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

of which he then made an extended lecturing tour. His 
speeches have followed the same general lines that Mr. Brad- 
laugh's pursue, and are always within the law. He was 
however set upon by Conservative'mobs and at one place 
was severely beaten, suffering injuries that confined him 
for some time. He is an excellent speaker with a strong, 
steady presence, good voice, and clear grasp, of his subject. 
He is a man of short stature, but of a massive frame, 
deep chested, broad shouldered, with great girth. His 
limbs are rather short for his trunk. The head is very large, 
and full in every respect. The forehead rises dome-like 
above the deep set greyish eyes that have a keen, humorous 
and questioning look in them. The features are large and 
rather heavy, the nose being full, the mouth large and mobile, 
the lower jaw heavy and firm. The general expression is 
kindly and sagacious, thoughtful and quiet. He is the 
peer in native ability of the most promising public men in 
England, and had he been endowed with the culture of a 
Gladstone or Derby, or had he been possessed of a fair 
pecuniary independence, there can be little doubt that 
George Odger would long since have been in Parliament, 
and would have sat in more than one British Cabinet. He 
is married, and his family now consists of his wife and two 
sons, one of whom has served in the British army. 

Mr. Odger has become widely known from his unsuc- 
cessful canvasses for a seat in the House of Commons. 
He was the first distinctive representative of his class who 
offered himself as a candidate. He stood the first time 
for the borough of Chelsea,— now in part represented by 
Sir Charles Dilke. This borough was a new one — created 
by the Reform bill of 1867. Mr. Odger says of his candi- 



GEORGE ODGER. 



341 



dature, that " I went to Chelsea at the invitation of a 
thousand electors, and the cry was then raised that I was 
dividing the Liberal interest, and in deference to a great 
principle, in order that I might not jeopardize Mr. Glad- 
stone's power in Parliament with reference to the Irish 
church question, I, at the request of the working-men, who 
said there was a principle at stake, accepted arbitration, 
which being against me, I left Chelsea." # 

In June, 1869, he contested the Borough of Stafford, 
now represented by Mr. Macdonald, President of the 
National Miners Union. The population consists largely 
of shoemakers. Four Liberal candidates (including him- 
self) were in the field. The Tories had but two — the num- 
ber to be elected. The other Liberals were Mr. W. J. 
Evans, and Mr. Benjamin Whitworth, both of whom had 
been in the House, and Mr. Edward Jenkins, author of 
" Ginx's baby." A biographical sketch of Mr. Odger gives 
the following facts in relation to this and subsequent ef- 
forts : " Mr. Odger declared his willingness that a pre- 
liminary ballot should decide which two of the three were 
to go to the poll ; at the same time not concealing his 
opinion, that, since he came forward distinctly as the Work- 
ingman's candidate, he ought to have been adopted, and 
the preliminary ballot confined to the other three. More- 
over, he contended that it would have been better to give 
each elector but one vote in the ballot and to extend it to 
the whole constituency instead of confining it to such as 
voted for the Liberal candidate at the preceding election. 
The ballot, however, was taken with the following result : 

* "Labor Portrait Gallery," Beehive, London, 1873, 



342 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES, 

Whitworth, 720 votes; Evans, 519 ; George Odger, 375 ; 
Jenkins, 182. But when the election came on, the two 
Liberals were rejected, and the two Tories (Salt and Talbot) 
were returned — a result for which George Odger, at all 
events, was in no way responsible. 

" Not daunted by the want of success in one of the cen- 
tres of his own craft,' George Odger presented himself, in 
February, 1870, to the notice of the borough of South wark. 
The constituency, always one of advanced opinions, had, 
by the extension of the franchise, become increasingly 
favorable to candidates of that stamp. It may have been 
warrantable also to expect that the tanners and curriers of 
Bermondsey would look kindly upon a candidate connected 
with the manufacture of shoe-leather. In fact, had George 
Odger been simply pitted against Colonel Beresford, there 
is not the least doubt that he would at this moment have 
been sitting as Member for Southwark. We are sorry to 
have to charge a gentleman deservedly so popular on other 
grounds as the last Lord Mayor of London, with the con- 
trary result. Yet it cannot be doubted that Sir Sydney 
Waterlow insisted upon going to the poll when it was 
known that his chance was doubtful ; and although he. 
withdrew in favor of George Odger, he did not take the 
step until he had brought up a sufficient number of Liberal 
voters to the poll to make it quite certain the Tory must 
win. Beresford was encouraged to come forward by 
Waterlow's persistence in going to the poll in competition 
with George Odger ; and was encouraged to persevere by 
the large number of votes thrown away upon the Alderman. 
Had the latter retired when the three Liberal members 
consulted first advised him, George Odger would have got 



GEORGE ODGER. 343 

in ; but Sir Sydney gave to the Tory the full benefit of an- 
other hour, and Colonel Beresford the seat. The numbers 
were, for Beresford, 4,686 ; for George Odger, 4,382 ; for 
Waterlow, 2,966. 

" These figures indicated so clearly the favor of the 
borough towards George Odger, that, when, in the follow- 
ing month he offered himself for Bristol, the wisdom of the 
step was called in question by some of his sincerest and 
most earnest friends. Here, as at Stafford, the Liberal to be 
selected as- candidate for the seat vacated by the decease 
of Mr. Henry Berkeley was made the subject of a pre- 
liminary test ballot. Those excepted who had plumped for 
Mr. Miles, Tory candidate at the preceding election, each 
elector received a perforated card bearing in different 
colors the names of the three candidates, Robinson, Hodg- 
son, and George Odger. The balloting was then carried 
out with admirable order under the superintendence of Mr. 
Crossley, of Manchester, and of Mr. Charles Godwin. 
The result was for Robinson, 4,558 ; for Hodgson, 2,761 • 
for George Odger, 1,361," # 

At the last general election Mr. Odger redeemed his 
promise to stand for Southwark again, but under the re- 
action that took place he was unsuccessful — the Liberal 
vote being again divided. 

Mr. Odger has naturally been a leading spirit in the 
" Labor Representation Society." He has also served for 
the last four years on the Parliamentary Committee of the 
Trades' Union Congress, a body charged with watching 
and resisting class legislation in the British Parliament. 
The Positivist writers Frederic Harrison and Henry Comp- 

* " Labor Portrait Gallery." 



344 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

ton, with others, have served as advisory members of the 
same committee. Mr. Odger's is a well known figure in the 
lobbies of the House of Commons ; and he is there treated 
with uniform respect. His ability is^aclmitted and his influ- 
ence courted or feared. At a great meeting called at Hyde 
Park, in the summer of 1873, in regard to the so-called 
Labor Laws then under consideration, Mr. Odger made a 
speech which is spoken of as " a fair example of the man- 
ner and spirit in which he handles the most exciting topics 
of common interest of the working classes. For them he 
claimed a full share of credit as to the high place that 
England occupies in the eyes of the world ; and for them 
also, he resented the indignity by which they had been re- 
paid in home-made laws dooming them to a position of in- 
jury and degradation worse than they had ever known be- 
fore. If Englishmen feel a law to be harsh and oppres- 
sive, they openly proclaim the fact, and, by rational discus, 
sion among themselves, lead each other along the safe and 
open path of manifest reason. Why, asked George Odger, 
should a workman be sent to prison for the violation of a 
contract with the master, and the master be allowed at 
pleasure to break his engagement with him ? And there 
must be many, even in the master class itself, who see 
plainly that without any further extension or more equal 
distribution of the franchise these cruel and one-sided laws 
cannot long be kept on the Statute Book." * 

The last sentence was almost prophetic ; within two 
years these laws have been rescinded. The London 
Beehive of August 7, 1875, contains a very clear presenta- 
tion from the pen of Frederic Harrison of the legislation 
which the Disraeli ministry have carried. He says that it is— 



GEORGE ODGER. 345 

il i. General abolition of special legislation against 
workmen as a class. 

"2. Redress of the ancient rule that breach of contract 
by a working man is a crime. 

'"3. Practical as well as nominal equality between the 
employer and the employed as to their contracts. 

"4. Redress of specific enforcement of a workman's 
contract as carried out by the Act of 1857. 

"5. Reform in the application of the doctrine of con- 
spiracy to all disputes between employer and employed. 

"6. Repeal of the special Criminal Law Amendment 
Act applying to workmen. 

"7. Specific legalization of attending (t. e., picketing) 
when done in order merely to obtain or communicate in- 
formation." 

Mr. Harrison adds " the principles contained in the 
two new Bills virtually exhaust all the points for which the 
workmen have long contended. I am far from saying that 
all of these have been carried out in a way that excludes 
all possible evil ; but it is clear that in principle every one 
of them has been distinctly affirmed. There has been, one 
must say, a scrupulous, indeed as between the rival par- 
ties, at times a jealous and most pharisaical eagerness to 
abolish the very shadow or semblance of partiality from 
the statute-book. But this very anxiety testifies to the 
genuine desire of the Home Office to remove every sym- 
bol of offence. It is most significant that the phrase 'em- 
ployers and workmen ' take the place of ' master and ser- 
vant.' * # # « This marks the opening of a new era 
and a new spirit in the governing class." 

*" Labor Portrait Gallery." 



346 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

Emphatic praise is accorded to Mr. Mundella for his 
" untiring and almost single-handed labors * # for 
many years, and also for the tact and patience with which 
he # # managed the protracted transformations through 
which the two Bills passed before they became law." On 
this side of the Atlantic it is hardly possible to appreciate 
the experiences and feelings of men, who, like George 
Odger, have for so many years fought an apparently almost 
hopeless fight against class rules and social oppression 
and political disability, as they see their cause growing 
daily, and feel that, one after another, the barriers in the 
path of "government of the people, by the people, and 
for the people," are being swept away forever. 



XX. 



Joseph Chamberlain. 



HE Mayor of Birmingham is regarded by all 
parties in England as a man of marked promise, 
though his future value is to be best estimated by 
the opinions of those who differ from him. A representa- 
tive man in the best sense of the well-to-do English middle- 
class, Mr. Chamberlain has already achieved, without any 
fortuitous aids, a position of considerable influence. It is 
not too much to say that his opinions are largely instrumen- 
tal in moulding the demands of advanced Radical or 
Liberal politics in Great Britain. 

Born in London, July, 1836, Mr. Chamberlain has 
at the age of thirty-nine, achieved a prominence unusual 
in Great Britain for a man heretofore comparatively un- 
known and, without those advantages of birth or liberal 
culture which tell so forcibly there. He was educated at 
an Academy School, connected with the London Univer- 
sity from which it is named. He is a leading lay mem- 



348 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

ber of the Unitarian denomination — a fact which in 
itself has had a considerable influence on his public 
career. At twenty years of age Mr. Chamberlain made 
his permanent residence in Birmingham, becoming a part- 
ner in the firm of Nettlefold & Chamberlain, screw manu- 
facturers. From this establishment, after a prosperous 
career, he recently retired in 1875, with independent means, 
to expend thenceforward his time and energies in the pub- 
lic service. 

Devoting himself to business with strictness and apti- 
tude, Mr. Chamberlain did not enter political life until 
1868, at the age of 32, though he had been known before 
that as a man of large reading and close application, and 
moreover as a good public speaker, clear-headed thinker, 
and forcible writer. He became conspicuous at a time 
when a vigorous effort was being made to secure a Conser- 
vative triumph in the famous borough of which he is now 
the chief executive officer. But he was more widely known 
in the two following years from his connection with the 
National Education League, as the Chairman of its Execu- 
tive Committee. Since then no Radical movement is 
counted complete without the name of Mr. Chamberlain 
as one of its prominent friends and advocates. He is 
in person rather tall, and sinewy, with a long head and 
face, bold, high forehead, strong features, fresh complexion, 
clear bright eyes, and light brown hair, and the impression 
that he makes is that of being a younger man than he is in 
reality ; while before an audience his cheery aspect, readi- 
ness and ease, as well as a good voice an.d a wit that never 
deserts him, makes his presence attractive and his speech 
influential. 



JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 349 

The bare facts of his public life, so far, can be briefly 
stated. From 1868 to 1873, his position has been that of 
an agitator, chiefly in support of a system of National 
Education entirely free from denominational control. 

He is known also for the bold expression of advan- 
ced politics — to the extent even of being regarded by 
many as a supporter of Charles Bradlaugh and his 
Republican agitation. So generally did this opinion pre- 
vail, that when on the 3rd of November, 1874, it became 
necessary for Mr. Chamberlain as Mayor of Birmingham to 
officially welcome the Prince of Wales to that borough, as 
well as to act the host at a banquet in his honor, there was 
a degree of curiosity aroused, almost national in its extent, 
as to how he would demean himself. His speech was not 
Republican in character, nor did it fail in those general 
expressions of loyalty which form part of the parapher- 
nalia of official life in Great Britain, though as far removed 
from the adulation common among municipal officials when 
in the presence of Royalty. In fact the Mayor's speech 
was a genial and manly recognition of the gentleman whose 
dignities and position, as the Heir to the Crown of Great 
Britain, demanded at least the outward respect that was 
paid. Some criticism was made of Mr. Chamberlain's at- 
titude. He himself seems to have felt the necessity of 
correcting the wide spread belief that he was an avowed 
Republican in principle. A short time before the Royal 
reception he made a brief speech at a dinner held in his 
honor, and in defining his position he said he had no ob- 
jection to admit that he was a Republican, if they would 
allow him to state what a Republican was. If it meant 
faith in representative institutions, and a government in 



350 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

which merit is preferred to birth, then he, in common with 
nearly all the greatest thinkers of the country, held it to 
be the best, at least in theory for a free and intelligent 
people. But, he continued, " I have never, in public or 
in private, advocated Republicanism for this country. We 
may be tending in that direction, but I hold that the time 
has not arrived yet, even if it ever arrives ; and I hold also 
that Radicals and Liberals have quite enough practical 
reform to strive after without wasting their time in what 
seems to me a very remote speculation. " 

A leading Republican C. C. Cattell of Birmingham, in 
commenting on this declaration, thinks that it settles Mr. 
Chamberlain's position and adds : " If at any time he has 
befriended the Republican side, as a matter of justice, that 
is only what he has done .to many other movements, the 
general principles and intentions of which he may or may 
not have approved. No doubt the Republican party 
would gain strength by having Mr. Chamberlain on their 
side ; but it is only a matter of decency that they should 
wait till he so declares himself. For the present they 
should treat him as a possible future friend." 

In 1873 he was unanimously elected President of the 
Birmingham School Board, — next to that of London, the 
most important in Great Britain. At the following muni- 
cipal Election he was chosen Mayor of Birmingham by a 
large majority, and at the general Election of 1874, he 
contested with Messrs. Mundella and Roebuck the bor- 
ough of Sheffield. In announcing his candidature he made 
a vigorous speech, remarkable for the bold liberal pro- 
gramme he advocated, and also for the directness with 
which he ranged himself on the side of Labor. This speech 



JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 35 I 

gave rise to extended discussion and criticism, which was 
not lessened by the tone of several notably trenchant 
articles published in the Fortnightly Review of about the 
same period. Mr. Chamberlain gave expression in these 
to what he regarded as the issues on which the Liberal 
party should be recognized, and the rallying cries under 
which it should be led to battle again. Among other critics 
was the venerable Earl Russell, who in discussing the 
cause of Mr. Gladstone's defeat, and the demands of the 
Radical politicians, says : — ■ 

* " Mr. Chamberlain, who is a leading apostle of this 
school, reminds me, with his notions of progress, of Tony 
Lumpkin, in the play of ' She Stoops to Conquer.' I will 
copy part of a dialogue from that play, in which Tony 
Lumpkin and his mother represent tolerably well Mr. 
Chamberlain and John Bull. When asked to describe his 
journey ; Tony answers , — 

' Tony. You shall hear. I first took them down Feath- 
erbed Lane, where we stuck fast in the mud. I then rat- 
tled them crack over the stones of Up-and-down Hill. I 
then introduced them to the gibbet on Heavy-tree Heath ; 
and from that, with a circumbendibus, fairly lodged them 
in the horse-pond at the bottom of the garden. 

' Hast. But no accident, I hope ? 

1 Tony. No, no, only mother is confoundedly frightened.' 

" So in this case, no harm, no accident has happened, 
but John Bull was ' confoundedly frightened.' In fact, he 
has been more frightened than hurt by the threats of the 
advanced Liberals." 

* " Recollections and Suggestions," pages 343-4. ' 



352 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

The Mayor of Birmingham was unsuccessful at Shef- 
field, standing third in the poll, receiving 11,124 votes 
against Roebuck's 14,193, — Mr. Mundella having 12,911 
votes. The large vote given Mr. Chamberlain in a borough 
where Mr. Roebuck's popularity is so great as to insure 
his election against any new aspirant, may be regarded as 
an evidence that under more favorable conditions, the 
National Education League and its friends will be gratified 
by seeing one of its most vigorous leaders seated in the 
House of Commons. The work it has undertaken is of great 
importance, and all the energy of its Executive officers are 
in demand. The activity has been greatly increased since 
1869, while the object of the League can be most readily 
understood by quoting its own declaration, which is " the 
establishment of a system which shall secure the education 
of every child in the country." 

The means proposed to accomplish this, are, that — 

" 1. — Local authorities shall be compelled by law to see 
that sufficient school accommodation is provided for every 
child in their district. 

"2. — The cost of founding and maintaining such 
schools as may be required shall be provided for by Local 
Rates, supplemented by Government grants. 

" 3. — All schools, aided by Local Rates, shall be under 
the management of the Local authorities, and subject to 
Government inspection. 

» 4. — All schools aided by Local Rates shall be unsec- 
tarian. 

5. — To all schools aided by Local Rates, admission 
shall be free. 

" 6. — School accommodation being provided, the Local 



JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 353 

authorities or the Government, shall have power to com- 
pel the attendance of children of a suitable age, not other- 
wise provided for. " 

Perhaps nothing will more clearly show the radical 
nature of the foregoing propositions, than a brief statement 
of the present position of Education in England and of 
legislation thereon. 

The first general attempt at the education of the masses 
began by the organization in 1805 of the British and 
Foreign School Society. This is within the fold of the 
Church of England. In 181 1, the National School So- 
ciety was formed by the dissenting or non-conforming 
sects. Both societies, in the absence of state machinery, 
have been of great service. It was not until 1833 that the 
first step was taken by the British Government, in the 
appointment of a committee of Education from the Privy 
Council and an appropriation of £20,000 to the schools of 
the two associations. The same year saw the adoption of 
a Factory Bill, reducing the hours of labor for children, 
which was the first of a series of steps of great importance 
in this general direction. In 1842 another act was passed 
forbidding the employment of children in coal and other 
mines, and requiring those of the permitted age to attend 
school for a certain part of the time. It was common be- 
fore the passage of this act for children of seven and five 
years, and even four, to work underground from twelve to 
sixteen hours out of each twenty-four. In 1843, the Edu- 
cational Grant was increased to £30,000. At the time, it 
is stated in Molesworth's " History of England from 1830 
to 1874," that there were 1,014,193 children growing up 
completely illiterate. Another measure was then adopt- 

23 



54 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 



ed compelling the education of pauper children and those 
employed in factories — the latter being brought about by 
fines and penalties imposed on the employers who hired 
children without the proper certificates of school attend- 
ance, or worked them so as to render them unable to attend 
the necessary hours. In 1844, another factory act required 
two and a half hours of daily school attendance in summer 
and three hours in winter for all children between the 
ages of eight and thirteen, employed in mill work. ■ Inter- 
est gradually increased in the subject of popular education, 
and this increase became more rapid after the International 
Exhibition of 185 1. For the next fifteen years the largest 
advance was made in the direction of scientific and^ tech- 
nical instruction. This increased interest is shown by 
the following statement: * 

" The annual parliamentary grants to popular educa- 
tion in Great Britain, which amounted to £30,000 in 1840, 
rose to £83,406 in 1848; to ,£"189,110 in 1850 ; to £326,- 
436 in 1854; to £668,873 in 1858 ; to £774,743 in 1862 ; 
in 1863, the grant was reduced to £721,386 ; in 1864, to 
^655,036 ; in 1865, to £636,306 ; in 1866, to £649,006 ; in 
1867, to £682,201 ; and in 1868, to £680,429 ; while in 
1869 it was raised again to £840,711 ; in 1870, to £914,721 ; 
in 187 1, to £1,038,624: and in 1872 to £1,551,560. The 
total grants for the financial year 1873-4 amounted to 
£2,472,780, and for 1874-5 to £2,577,389. 

" In the distribution of the * * grants * # about 
seven-tenths were given in recent years for examination 
and attendance of pupils, two-tenths as stipends and salaries 
to teachers, and one-tenth spent in administration and for 
building schools. The income from the fees paid by the 



JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 355 

children in the elementary schools amounted, on the aver- 
age of the last five years, to less than a sixth of the sums 
voted by Parliament." * 

When the first national education act was passed, the 
cost of the Elementary schools in England, aided by Gov- 
ernment grants, was £1,483,472. They numbered 8,281, 
with accommodations for 1,878,584 pupils, and showed an 
average daily attendance of 1,152,389. By the act for Pub- 
lic Elementary Education it is ordered that there shall " be 
provided for every school district a sufficient amount of 
accommodation in public elementary schools available for 
all the children resident in such district, for whose ele- 
mentary education efficient and suitable provision is not 
otherwise made. It is enacted further that all children 
attending these 'public elementary schools', whose parents 
are unable, from poverty, to pay anything towards their 
education, shall be admitted free, and the expenses so 
incurred be discharged from local rates. The new schools 
are placed in each district under ' School Boards', invested 
with great powers, among others that of making it com- 
pulsory upon parents to give all children between the ages 
of five and thirteen the advantages of education. "f 

The general control of this system is under the Com- 
mittee of Education of the Privy Council ; Lord Sandon 
being Vice-President under the Disraeli Ministry, as was 
the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, M. P., under Mr. Gladstone's 
Premiership. This department determines the accommo- 
dation required. It apportions the grants; approves or 
rejects the resolution of the Local School Board to enforce 
a compulsory rule ; directs the times, etc., of ele ction for 
* Martin's Year Book, 1875, PP- 212-213. t Id., p. 212. 



35 6 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

members of such Board ; determines where they are ne- 
cessary, which is to be judged by the deficiency existing and 
wishes of the rate-payers. The Boards are elected for 
three years. The cumulative vote is applied in the Elec- 
tions and no restrictions provided, as to the candidacy of 
either ladies or non-residents. The Boards have power to 
determine the amount of school fees or remit them alto- 
gether, for a period not exceeding six months ; it may in 
some cases aid in feeding the poorer children: it has the 
general maintenance of the schools, can purchase sites and 
erect buildings. How rapid has been the growth of these 
elementary schools may be seen from the following facts : 

In 187 1-2, the schools under government inspection 
numbered 9,854 ; the children in them, 1,336,000 ; School 
Boards 82. 

In 1872-3, the schools numbered 11,094.; the children 
1,482,000 ; the School Boards 520 ; children at schools 
where compulsory attendance was enforced, 70,000. 

In 1873-4, schools 12,246, children 1,679,000; School 
Boards 838 ; pupils under compulsory attendance 138,000. 

In August 1874, the Inspectors' reports showed that 
there were 1,727,275 pupils in attendance at the Elemen- 
tary Schools. The number of School Boards in October of 
that year was 854. It is estimated there will be, at the 
end of the school year 1875-6, not less than 2,057,567 pu- 
pils under the new educational policy, in England and Wales 
alone. In Scotland, the number of scholars is stated at 
342,847, and in Ireland, there were on the 31st of Decem- 
ber, 1874, 7,257 schools with an enrolment of 1,006,511 
pupils, and an average daily attendance of 395,39°- It: 
was stated by Lord Sandon that, before the year 1875 



JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 357 

closed, accomodation would have been provided for every 
child of school age in the United Kingdom. This would, 
it is estimated, give 2,500,000 places in schools receiving 
government grants ; in others, not receiving such grants, 
hut inspected and passed as efficent, 1,000,000 ; in Board 
Schools, 500,000. This supply would be ample, and 
without the enforcement of compulsory attendance, it is 
estimated, one-third of those seats would be daily unoccu- 
pied. The battle is really turning on this point, — the anti- 
denominational issue, though discussed, not being as vig- 
orously pressed. Out of a total population of 22,712,266 
in England, only 10,818,825 are included within the juris- 
diction of School Boards; and of these the number to 
whom by-laws for enforcing school attendance apply is 
9,538,971. Compulsion is now the law for rather less than 
forty-two per cent, of the entire population, and for about 
seventy-nine per cent, of the town population. In many 
places Boards have been formed for no other purpose than 
to enforce the attendance of children in schools of which 
the supply was already sufficient. It is regarded however 
as very costly machinery for the purpose. 

Mr. Chamberlain represents very forcibly, in his speeches 
and writings, the hostility roused at the compromise made 
b) Mr. Forster, in the act of 1872, — a compromise which, 
it is declared, largely tended to accelerate the retirement 
of the Gladstone ministry. To sum up then, the present 
situation in Great Britain on the subject of national edu- 
cation, leaves three parties, — the first of which insists on 
distinct dogmatic teaching, the second contends for Bible 
reading only ( Earl Russell and Liberals of his school 
would be contented therewith), and the third wants instruc- 



35 o BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

tion to be made secular. The other issues are whether the 
school system shall continue as now, to be supported by a 
mixed plan of government grants, local rates and tuition 
fees, or by the local rates only. The latter is the demand 
of the League, of which Mr. Chamberlain is an active 
leader. The difference may be seen by the position and 
requirements of the legislation now in existence. Under 
the present system, schools are maintained by means of 
voluntary contributions and tuition fees, supplemented by 
local rates and government grants. The rates are applied 
only in School Board districts. The schools aided by 
government grants may be under public or private control, 
but must be, as to instruction, up to the parliamentary stand- 
ard. Government inspection is enforced, not voluntary. 
Denominational schools are permitted, but the system is 
not extended. Religious instruction can be given, but the 
government grants or local rates are not to be used in 
support thereof. Children are not compelled to be in at- 
tendance if their parents object. Inspection, as such, by 
the church or other denomination, is not permitted. The 
Privy Council committee of education do not aim to con- 
trol or direct, but only to supervise and inspect. Com- 
pulsory attendance can be enforced only by the by-laws 
of the several Local Boards, first approved by the Privy 
Council. These are the salient features of the plan now 
in operation. 

Mr. Chamberlain's activity is felt in many directions. 
Like other prominent Liberals, whose practical knowledge 
rendered them available for the service, he has been en- 
gaged as arbitrator in Labor disputes. A notable case of 
this kind was the settlement through him, of a long strike 



JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 359 

in 1873-4, between the employers and coal-miners of South 
Staffordshire, over a question of reducing wages. Mr. 
Chamberlain's decision substituted a sliding scale for a 
fixed rate ; the scale to be determined by the price list 
issued by Earl Dudley, the largest operator in the district. 
The principle is the same as that which the anthracite mi- 
ners of Pennsylvania have sought to maintain, and against 
the overthrow of which they were on strike for several 
months of 1875. 

. Mr. Chamberlain has also been an early and liberal 
contributor to the "Agricultural Laborers Union" agi- 
tation, and he is regarded by its journal, the " Laborers' 
Union Chronicle," as one of their best friends. He gives 
his support and presence to the aid of co-operative efforts 
and meetings. At a public meeting held in the Birming- 
ham Town Hall, November 25th, 1874, to urge a plan of 
productive co-operation, the Mayor presided, and declared 
in his speech, that such experiments were desirable quite 
as much in the interests of employers, as in the interests 
of the employed. If working-men could really success- 
fully conduct on their own account complicated manufac- 
tures', they would learn on the one hand to appreciate the 
difficulties which frequently beset employers, and the ob- 
jects by which capitalists were trammelled ; and on the 
other hand, they would do a great deal towards settling the 
vexed question of what was - the fair proportion in which 
profit should be divided between labor and capital. He 
held however that the right principle of co-operation as 
applied to manufacture, was that when a fair market wage 
had been paid to the laborers, and when a fair market in- 
terest had been paid to those who found the capital, 



36O BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

whether they were working men, or capitalists, or anything 
else, all surplus should be equally divided between both 
classes. 

There were two advantages which would follow this, 
and they were practical advantages : In the first place, 
the working people in such a concern were not tied down 
by any hard and fast line called the rule of supply and 
demand, since there was no limit to the wages they might 
possibly earn ; but they would depend in a great measure 
upon their own exertions, — they could earn something 
above the fixed rate, if they gave their minds to it. In the 
second place, inasmuch as all the work-people in such a 
concern would be partners in it, every man among them 
would have a direct interest in its success, and each, in 
his own way, would do something to secure it. In making 
such an experiment, there were three conditions which he 
thought necessary to success. In the first place, they must 
choose their ablest, their best men, as their managers. 
They must bear in mind that a man might be a capital 
workman, and a clever fellow, and yet might not possess 
the peculiar talent which they called business capacity, 
and which, he believed, was just as much a special gift 
as the taste for music or the taste for drawing. 

When they had foud their good managers, it was no use 
attempting to get them below the market price ; and if 
they were ungenerous in this respect, they might be sure 
that they would not rivet the interests of those men to 
theirs, and they would be certain to be deprived of their 
services just when they were becoming most useful to them. 
And lastly when they had got a good manager and paid 
him well, they must give him their full and complete confl- 



JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 36 1 

dence. They must be prepared for bad times, for there 
were fluctuations even in the most successful business ; and 
must express and show always a generous and loyal confi- 
dence in those whom they had selected to guide their 
councils and to manage their business. 

The political opinions and character of Mr. Chamber- 
lain have, however, become most widely known in England 
through the vigorous articles prepared by him and pub- 
lished in the Fortnightly Review of 1873. It is these pa- 
pers which have aroused the most admiration and criticism, 
according as the reader's opinions were or were not in 
harmony with the writer's. That they were not regarded as 
politic or wise by the more moderate Liberals, or approved 
by oldtime and honored leaders like Mr. Bright, was evident 
from the letters of the accomplished correspondent of the 
New York T?'ibune, Mr. G. W. Smalley, who represents 
more closely even than English writers do, the opinions 
held by the persons indicated. 

But the articles themselves stamp Mr. Chamberlain as 
a man of unusual force, and their appearance was oppor- 
tune, as the Liberal party had practically broken to pieces 
for want of salient policy. In the place of compromise 
and temporizing, which is the usual course pursued by 
English statesmen, it had been found that the Conserva- 
tive party, under Mr. Disraeli's leadership, was capable of 
making almost as rapid strides as the Liberals under Mr. 
Gladstone, and that when so moving of late years, they 
have been more successful, in that they could utilize all 
the arduous preparatory labors of their opponents to help 
their eleventh-hour efforts. Mr. Chamberlain urged the 
need of decisive action • pointed out issues, and formulated 
16 



362 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

new rallying cries. The paper, under the title of " The 
Liberal party and its leaders," appeared in the Fortnightly 
of September, 1873, and the second under the caption of 
"The next page of the Liberal programme," appeared in 
October of the same year. 

The first paper was, as its title indicates, a review of 
Liberal measures and men. After showing the internal 
causes of party dissatisfaction and emphasizing the services 
of the Gladstone ministry, the foremost of which were stated 
to be the pacification of Ireland and the disestablishment 
of the Irish State Church, Mr. Chamberlain proceeded to 
show the reasons for the grave discontent, which he de- 
clared to exist in the party. These are the failure to rectify 
unjust working class legislation ; to extend the county 
franchise, and the paltry compromise on the matter of 
education. With regard to these issues, Mr. Chamberlain 
said in his first article, that — 

" Of one thing we may be certain — that if we continue much 
longer to flaunt our wealth and luxury in the face of a vast population, 
whose homes would disgrace a barbarous country, whose lack of cul- 
ture and education leaves them a prey to merely animal instincts, and 
who find it difficult, and often impossible, to procure the barest neces- 
saries of life, we shall be startled some day by the abrupt and possibly 
inconvenient accomplishment of reforms which will throw into the 
shade the splendid achievements of a Ministry that now confines itself 
to preparing bills which are meant to be withdrawn, and which pass 
into the limbo of unaccomplished legislation, unwept, unhonored, and 
unsung." 

He then referred to optimistic views that were broadly 
put forth on the hustings and said in reply — 

" It is impossible to say with certainty what will be the exact form 
of this protest against the ever-recurring assumption that the time has 



JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 363 

come when statesmen may rest from their labors and parties be at peace, 
but it must include some or all of the following ideas which have been 
exercising a growing attraction for political thinkers, and which are 
summed up in the sentence which may perhaps form the motto of the 
new party — Free Church, Free Land, Free Schools, and Free Labor." 

Following this attractive and alliterative rallying cry — 
one which seems to have taken hold of the Radical masses 
— the writer proceeded to define in detail what is to be 
aimed at under each division of the motto he shaped, and 
what are the forces that will rally around the new T Liberalism 
he advocates. That of a " Free Church," will unite the 
divided Non-Conformists, and the working class — the lat- 
ter having however no sympathy with the theological 
phase which will attract the former. A demand will 
be made that disendowment shall accompany disestab- 
lishment, and the claim will be eagerly put forth that in 
" the nation as a whole the control and management of 
the vast funds which have been monopolized and misap- 
propriated by an ecclesiastical organization " — shall here- 
after be vested. " Free land," writes Mr. Chamberlain, 

" Involving the reform of laws, passed admittedly in the supposed 
interest of a very limited class, and operating, notwithstanding, to 
their injury, while materially diminishing the happiness and the pros- 
perity of the rest of the population, will have to be contended for at 
the same time and wrested from the same political opponents." 

He speaks of " wealthy legislators, acred up to their eyes " 
who are also " stolid defenders " of the establishment, ex- 
pecting to find in " that Church the most zealous upholders 
of their privileges and monopoly." He declares that : — 

" The English land system has no parallel in the world. It makes 
proprietorship a luxury, attainable only by a few, and seems ingeniously 



364 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 

designed to discourage profitable investment in .the soil, and involve 
landlord and tenant alike in a suicidal struggle to exhaust the land, 
during the existence of their limited interests." 

" Free Schools may possibly," he thinks, " have to wait 
longer for their general acceptance and development, al- 
though the progress of compulsory education is certain to 
create and stimulate the demand for them." It is just that 
education should be a national charge borne equally by all 
the people. There is a fashionable political economy 
" very popular in the parliament of the rich, which has 
made the discovery that such a wide distribution of a 
charge which is to secure a universal benefit, is calculated 
to degrade and pauperize those whom it relieves from a 
heavy and onerous payment, levied at a time when they 
are Least able to support it." This is " the gospel of sel- 
fishness," and teaches that philanthropy has performed 
its duty " when it buttons up the breeches pocket." The 
" superfine philosophy " involved, will however be " repudi- 
ated as suddenly as it has been accepted by the great body 
of politicians who obtain their opinions ready-made, and 
change them as soon as they discover they do not fit the 
humor of the majority." 

Mr. Chamberlain's judgment is vindicated by later 
events in England, when he declared that : — ■ 

" Free Labor — the last position named in the Quadrilateral which 
the Irreconcilables attack — will probably be the first to be gained 
by them. The questions involved admit of only one possible solu- 
tion. * * 

The legislative changes sought by the workmen are surely moderate 
enough. They seem to be confined to three points : — the amendment 
of the law of conspiracy, the operation of which has been generally 
admitted to be unjust; — the alteration of those clauses of the Criminal 



JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 365 

Law Amendment Act which wound the self-respect and offend the 
common sense of the men by creating new crimes which are incapable 
of clear definition, while at the same time they are of no real value to 
employers in any serious struggle ; — and the abolition of imprisonment 
for breach of contract where no malicious injury is intended to person 
or property. It can hardly be worth while to perpetuate ill-feeling and 
irritation for the sake of defending such a paltry stake as this." 

During the Parliamentary session of 1875, the Con- 
servative ministry has utilized, for its own advantage, the 
long discussion of these questions ; and, under the leader 
ship of Mr. Cross, Secretary of State for Home affairs, has 
succeeded in perfecting a measure which almost entirely 
sets at rest the mooted points indicated in the foregoing. 
Mr. Chamberlain's second paper was published after the 
general election of 1873 had resulted in returning a Con- 
servative majority to the House of Commons. In it he is 
even more outspoken. The following extract will illustrate 
the style and directness of this new aspirant in the field of 
political polemics. As to the causes of the Liberal defeat 
he says : 

" There are two popular theories on the subject. The Tories 
claim pardonably enough, that what their merits alone might have 
been unable to effect was achieved through the misdeeds of their op- 
ponents. According to this explanation, the nation, tired of the plun- 
dering and blundering of a tyrannical faction, roused itself to throw 
off the yoke, and flung itself with a sigh of relief into the arms of the 
Tories. The Liberal view is still more simple. Aristides was ostra- 
cized because he was just, and the Gladstone ministry fell by its own 
virtues. There is some truth in both these statements. It is certain 
that the late Government was thoroughly unpopular at the time of its 
fall ; and, on the other hand, it must be admitted that it performed 
much useful work, and that its chief measures were called for by Liberal 
opinion, and if not perfect exponents of the wishes of its constituents, 
were, at least, in the desired direction. It may be said broadly, how- 



o 



66 BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 



ever, that the ministry had offended every one to whom change was ob- 
jectionable, and that it made no bid for the support of those who con- 
ceived that further change was necessary. It must be granted that the 
English are naturally a Conservative people. We cling fondly to 

' Custom, which all mankind to slavery brings, 
That dull excuse for doing silly things,' 

and we are slow to appreciate and assimilate new ideas. Above all, 
we are impatient of small changes, and intolerant of infinitesimal re- 
forms. It would be easier to disestablish the English Church than to 
clothe the Blue-coat boys in decent ordinary costume, while it would 
almost be safer to proclaim a republic than to meddle with certain 
ignoble petty interests, as, for instance, the control and management 
of their funds by some of the City companies. It was the evil genius 
of the late Government which somehow prompted their interference in 
a hundred minor matters which involve no game worth the candle, but 
which deeply interested the prejudices of various members of the com- 
munity. Every class and every section of the population have had 
reason to be annoyed during the last few years, and have felt perhaps 
their wound was great because it was so small. There has been too 
much ' nagging ' in legislation ; and the Imperial Parliament, which, 
like the elephant's trunk, can pick up pins or rend an oak, has gather- 
ed pins enough to fill a lady's reticule." 

Mr. Chamberlain's future is in his own hands, and that 
which has been so well begun, may be expected to develop 
in usefulness and power. 



INDEX. 



Aberdare, Lord, 247. 

Adams, Sarah F., 57. 

Adams, W. B., 57. 

Adderly, Sir Chas., 204. 

Agricultural Laborers, 19, 45, 68, 78, 
in, 143, 182, 186, 280, 2S3, 284, 285, 
292,294, 300, 302, 319, 329; 359- 

Albert, Prince, 60. 

Alfred the Great, King, 77, 104. 

Alsop, Rebecca, 122. 

Alsop, T. 122. 

Althorp, Lord, 237. 

"Alton Locke," roo. 

American Civil War, 236. 

Angerstein, Mr., 74. 

Anti-Conspiracy Committee, 270. 

Anti-Corn Law League, 57, 284. 

Anti-State-Church Association, 80, 231. 

Arago, Francis, 244. 

Arbitration, 125, 127, 128, 182, 358. 

Arch, Joseph, Memoir, 275 ; also 186 
329- 

Arnold, Matthew, 103. 

Arnold. Dr. Thos., 103. 

Asher, Mr., 58. 

Ashley, Lord, 145. 

Ashurst, W. H., 58. 

" Athenaeum," the, 38. 

Ayrton, A. S., 271, 313. 



B. 

Baines, Edward, 93, 94- 

Ba.1, Friar John, 278. 

Barmby, Goodwyn, 58, 61. 

Bates, Edward, 202. 

Baxter, W. E., 22. 

Beales, Edmond, 94, 320. 
' Beehive Portrait Gallery," 83, 91, 95, 
127, 15S, 168, 184, 187, 239, 245, 246, 
248, 263, 265, 271, 281, 334- 34i, 343- 

Beesly, Prof., 322. 

Beresford, Col., 342, 343- 

Berkeley, Henry, 212, 343. 

Bigelow, Erastus, 175. 

Birmingham Political Union, the, 44, 259 

295- 
Bismarck, Prince, 53, 270. 
" Blackwood's Magazine," quoted, 99. 
Board of Trade, 203, 204, 207. 
Bonaparte, Napoleon III., 270. 
Bonaparte, Prince N. J., 322. 
Borough Franchise, 45, 47- 
Bouverie, E. P., 109. 
Bowring, Dr., 58, 61. 
Bradlaugh, Charles, Memoir, 305 ; 

also 28, 53, 54, 87, 88, 1S6, 265, 328, 349- 
Bramwell, Baron, 321. 
Brassey, Albert, 167. 
Brassey, Elizabeth, 164. 
Brassey, H.A-, 167. 



,68 



INDEX. 



Brassey, John, 164. 

Brassey Thomas, Memoir, 161 ; also 

33o. 
Brassey, Thomas, Senior, 162, 163,164, 166. 
Brediu-s, J. P., 246 
Brewster, Sir David, 244. 
Briggs & Sons, 175. 
Bright, John, 16, 63, 83, 94, 134, 182, 244, 

247, 250, 255, 302, 329, 330, 339* 36i. 
" British Quarterly," quoted, 229, 238. 
Brooke, Rev. Stopford A. 54. 
Brookes, H., 290. 
Brown, John, 34. 
Bruce {See Aberclare). 
Burke, Edmund, 192. 
Burt, Thomas, 23, 95, 142, 147, 148, i>5*, 

152, i53, i54, 158, 159, 185. 
Bury, Lord, 35. 
Butcher, Mr., 290. 
Butler, B- F., 290. 
Buxton, Fowell, 67. 



Cade, Jack, 2 78. 

Cairns, Prof., 19. 

Canterbury, Dean of, 234. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 19. 

Carter, Robert M., Memoir, 86; 

also 22. 
Cattell, C C, 350. 
Chamberlain, Joseph, Memoir, 347 ; 

also 23, 76, 133. 
Chamfort, Sebastian R. N., 201. 
Chartism, 305. 
Chevalier, Michel, 244. 
Christian Socialists, 100, roi. 
Church of England, organization of, 231. 
Civil List Expenditures, 2-5. 
Clarendon, Lord., 272. 
Cobden, Richard, 134, 180, 182, 244 

247. 
Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice, 109. 
Cold, Henry, 40. 
Coleridge, Sir J. D. 250, 321. 
Collier, Sir R., 321. 



Collings, Jesse, 2S8, 289. 

" Commercial" (Cincinnati, U. S.), quot- 
ed, 89, 193, 295. 

Communism, 261. 

Compulsory Education, 356, 357, 364. 

Comte, Auguste, 1-64. 

" Concilation and Arbitration," 127. 

Concilation, Board of, 182. 

Congreve, Dr., 322. 

Connelly, Thomas, 133. 

"Contemporary Review," 331. 

Conway, M. D., 13, 17, iS, 86, 87, 89, 
i93, 295. 

Cooper, Sir Astley, 264. 

Cooper, Bransby, 264. 

Cooper Institute, 137. 

Cooper, Thomas, 58, 124. 

Cooper, William, 26. 

Co-operative Societies, 255, 267, 272, 273, 

359- 

Coquerel, A. de, 244. 

Cormenin, L. M. de, 244. 

Corn Laws, the, 57, 2S5. 

County Franchise, 362. 

" Courier - Journal" (Louisville, Ky.) 

quoted, 221. 
Courtauld, Samuel, 56. 
Cowen, Joseph, Memoir, 77 ; also 76, 

93, 112, 221. 
Cowen, Sir Joseph, 78, 79. 
Cramer, W. R., 33S. 
Crawfurd, E. H. J., 321. 
Cremieux, Adolphe, 322. 
Criminal Law Amendment Act, 139, 364. 
Cross, Mr., 23, 68, 156, 365. 
Cumulative Vote, 356. 



Darwin, Chas., 71. 
" Daughters of Rebecca, ' 24*. 
Davies, David, 155. 
Danman, Lord, 314. 
Dickens, Charles, 264. 
Dilke, Austin, 3S, 39. 



INDEX. 



3 6 9 



Dilke, Sir Charles W., Memoir, 27 ; 
also 59, 76, 95, 141, 152, 178, 1S5, 194, 
33o. 

Dilke, Lady, 50. 

Disestablishment, 24, 366. 

".Dispatch," Weekly London, 38,39. 

Disraeli, Benjamin, 25, 29, 37, 53, 80, 
134; i35> J93) i94> 201, 202, 203, 302. 

Dissenters, 228. 

Dixon, Thos., 95 162, 288. 

" Dod's Parliamentary Pocket Compan- 
ion," 44, 59, 194. 

Dudley, Lord, 359. 

Duncombe, Thos. S., 61. 

Durham, Earl, 80. 



Eadon, Dr. S., 192. 

Eaton, John, 137. 

Eccarius, George J., 337. 

" Ecclesiastical Knowledge Society," 
the, 231. 

Edict of Nantes, 306. 

Edinburgh, Duke of, 65, 312. 

Education Bills, 14, 15, 44, 137, 139, 226, 
236, 249. 

Education, Bureau of, 137. 

Education League, 53, 138, 352. 

Education, National, 277, 34S, 353. 

Elcho r Lord, 156. 

Electoral Reform Association, 46. 

Elliott, Eben-ezer, 56, 57. 

" Elsie Venner," 27Q. 

Employers and Workmen, 156, 345. 

Engel, Frederic, 336. 

Engineers, Amalgamated, 332. 

English-speaking Communities, Federa- 
tion of, 41. 

Epps, Dr., 61. 

Erskine, Mr. Justice, 264. 

Escott, T. H. L., quoted, 219. 

Evans, W. T., 341, 342. 

" Examiner," the, 24, 25, 60. 

" Express" (Leeds) the, 93. 



Factory Health Act, 20, 140, 353. 
Factory Nine Hours' Bill, 140, 353. 
Faithful, Mr., 237. 
Fall River (Miss.) weavers, 274 
Farley, Augusta A. M., 242. 
Fawcett, Henry, Memoir, 11 ; also 

72, 76, 140, 142, 152, 185. 221, 283,329, 

330. 
Fawcett, Mrs., 12, 20, 26, 70. 
Fawcett, William, 26. 
Fielding, Henry, 68. 
Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund, 152 
Foreign Affairs Committee, 79. 
Forster, W. E., 16, 94, 226, 236, 250, 302, 

355) 357- 
"Fortnightly Review," 277, 351, 361, 

362. 
Foudichon, Admiral, 322. 
Fourier, Charles, 175. 
Fox, Head & Co., 175. 
Fox, W. J., 57, 58, 59. 
" Fraser's Magazine," quoted, 219. 
Frauds, Statute of, 69. 
Free Church, 363. 
Friendly Societies' Bill, 84. 
Fugitive Slave Law, 86. 



" Galaxy," the, quoted, 326, 328. 

Gambetta, Leon, 53, 322- 

Game Laws, 53. 

Garibaldi. General, 81,93, 247, 320. 

Garrett, N-, 26. 

Garrison, W. L., 244, 267, 268, 269. 

George II., King, 32, 312. 

George IV-, King, 32, 312. 

Gibson, Milner, 321- 

Girardin, Emile de, 244. 

Gladstone, Win, E., 17, 28, 35, 43, 53, 

78, 80, 13S, 139, 200, 214, 217, 234,243, 

335. 35', 355, 365- 
Goldney, G., 109. 



37° 



INDEX. 



Goichen, G. J., 250. 
Graham, Sir James, 61. 
Si Greater Britain," 40. 
Greeley, Horace, 266, 327. 
" Green's History of the People of En- 
gland," quoted, 278. 
Greening, E. O., 266. 
"Greville Memoirs," 60. 
Grote, George, 60, 6-i. 
Gurney, Russell, 103. 

H. 

Hall of Science, 261. 

Halliday, Mr., 148. 

Hampden, John, 124. 

" Hansard's Debates," quoted, 43, 95. 

Harney, G. J., 270. 

Harrison, Frederic, 76, 344, 345. 

Harrison, Maria (Mrs. Brassey), 165. 

Hastings, Warren, 192. 

Haweis, H. P-, 54. 

Helps, Sir Arthur, 162, 164, 165, 174. 

Henry, Mitchell, 136, 

" Herald,'' New York, 200, 202. 

Herbert, Auberon, 35, 76, 287, 289. 

Hickson, W. E., 57. 

Hill, Luke, 68, 69. . . 

Hindley. Mr. 244. 

'' History of Co-operation,"273. 

Hodgson. K. D., 343. 

Holmes, O. W., 279, 

Holyoake, Austin, 54, 257, 269 

Holyoake, G. J., Memoir, 255 ; also 

58, ft, 72, 315, 316. 
Holyoake, Mrs., 258. 
Home Rule (Ireland), 65. 
Hood, Thomas, 101. 
Hope, Samuel, 182. 
Horden, Ellen Francis, 73- 
Hotham, George, 72. 
Howell, George, 64, 338. 
Hughes, John, 103. 

Hughes, Thomas, Memoir, 99; also 
63, 137. i39> 255- 



Hugo, Victor, 244, 270. 
Huguenots, 306- 
Hume, Joseph, 61, 182. 
Hunt, Knight, 264- 
Hunt, Leigh, 60. 
Hunt, Thornton. 58, 61. 
Hutton, Crompton, 3ZL 
Huxley, T- H., 23, 71, 76. 
Hyde, Capt-, 68- 

I. 

" Impeachment of the Honse of Bruns- 
wick," 310. 
" Intelligencer," (Cambridgeshire) the, 

57- 

International Working-Men's Associa- 
tion, 332, 336. 

Intoxicating Drinks, statistics of, 216. 

Irish Education Bills, 16. 

Irish State Church, 237, 362 

J- 

Jenkins, Edward, 287, 341, 342. 
" Joint Committees," 147- 
Jones, Ernest, 94, 308- 
Jones, Lloyd, 262. 

K. 

Kelly, Lord Chief Baron, 321. 
Kelly, Mr., 1S2. 
Kenealy, Dr , 142, 323. 
Kimberly, Lord, 297. 
Kingsley, Charles, 100. 
Knatchbull-Hugessen, E. H., 218. 
Kossuth, Louis, 81. 



" Laborers' Union," 68. 

Labor Laws, 109, 157, 344- . 

Labor Representation Society, 343. 

Laborers' Association, 290. 

" Laborers' Union Chronicle," quoted, 

286, 293, 296, 297, 359. 
Laird & Co., 63. 



INDEX. 



37* 



Lamartine, A. de, 244. 

Land Tenure Bills, 186, 283. 

Lander, Mr., 221. 

Langford, Dr., 288. 

Lanza, Louis, 247. 

Lawson, Sir Wilfred, Memoir, 211; 

also 1S5. 
Lawson, William, 213. 
" Leader," the, 58, 266, 267. 
League, Anti-Corn-Law, 56, 284. 
Leatham, Mr., 94- 
Leigh, Rev- J- W-, 289. 
Leighton, Sir Baldwin, 289- 
" Liberal Quarterly," 57. 
"Licensed Victuallers' Association," 215. 
Liddon, Canon, 54- 
Liebig, Justus, 244, 
Lincoln, Bishop of, 316. 
Lindsay, Mr., 63, 339- 
Linton, W. J., 58, 61, 82, 265, 266- 
Liquor Law, Permissive, 211, 212. 
Lloyd, Jones, 258. 
" Lloyd's Register," 205. 
Lock-outs, 125, 248, 331. 
Lollard, Walter. 279. 
" London Labor and the London Poor," 

ioi. 
" Lothair," 53. 
Louis, Alfred H., 42. 
Lowe, Robert, 14, 250. 
Lubbock, Harriet, 72. 
Lubbock, Sir John, Memoir, 71 ; 

also 330 
Lubbock, Sir John W-, 72. 
Lucraft, Mr., 184. 
Ludlow, Mr., 101, 111. 

M. 

McCarthy, Justin, 326, 327, 330. 
Macdonald, Alexander, Memoir, 

142 ; also 23, 95, 141, 185, 221, 341- 
MandifcStei Education Union, 109. 
Manchester School, the, 23, 56. 
Manners, Lord John, 212. 



Manning, Cardinal, 186, 329. 

Mansfield, Lord, 228. 

Martin, Baron, 321. 

" Martin's Year Book," quoted, 355. 

Marvell, Andrew, 124. 

Marx, Dr. Karl, 336. 

Mary, Queen, 306. 

" Master and Servant Act," 68, 109 

i39» 345- 
Mathew, Father, 214. 
Maurice, Rev. F. D.. 101, 102. 
Maxse, Capt., 66. 
Mayhew Brothers, 10 1. 
Mazzini, Joseph, 57, 58, 61, 81, 265, 270, 

320. 
Mechanics' Institutes, 90, 123, 258, 259. 
"Men and Manner in Parliament," 

quoted, 14, 34, 38, 134, 154, 225. 
" Mercury" (Leeds) the, 93, 
Miall, Edward, Memoir, 224 ; also 

16, 1S3, 194, 250. 
Miall, Moses, 230. 
Miall, Sarah, 230. 
Miles, Mr., 343. 

Mill, J. S., 14, 57i 67, 271, 319, 321. 
Mills, Sir Charles, 74. 
Miners' Lockout, 248. 
Miners' Union, 146, 319. 
Minority Representation, 46. 
Molesworth, Rev. W. N., 256, 318, 

353- 
Montagu, Lord, 330. 
" Monthly Repository," the, 57. 
Moody, D. L-, 214. 
Morgan, Matt., 33. 
Morley, John, 181, 182, 277. 
Morley, Samuel, Memoir, 180 *, also 

22, 221, 230. 
"Morning Star" (London), 243. 
Morrison, Walter, 255. 
Mott, Lucretia, 244. 
Mottershead, Thomas, 338. 
Mundella, Anthony John, Memoir 

121 ; also22, 33,95, 182, 185,218, 221, 
33°, 35°> 352. 




37 2 



INDEX. 



Mundella, Antonio, 122. 
Mursell, Rev. J. P., 232. 

N. 

" National Reformer," the, 315, 323^ 
Neale, Vansittart, 101, 255. 
Nettlefold & Chamberlain, 34S. 
"Newcastle Chronicle" the, jj, 93? 

266. 
Newman, Francis A., 265, 329. 
" New Moral World" the, 262, 265. 
" News," Daily (London), 3-9, 264, 266. 
" Nonconformist," the, 224. 
" Northern Star," the, 262. 
" Notes and Queries," 39. 
"Notes on Algeria," 172. 

O. 

O'Conne'll, Daniel, 194, 310. 

Odger, George, Memoir, 326 ; also 52, 

64. 
Odger, John, 330. 
" Origin and Metamorphoses of Insects," 

74- 
Orsini plot, the, 270. 
Osborne, Bernal, 212. 
" Our Seamen," 194, 195, ±97, 205. 
Owen, Joseph, 22. 
Owen, Robert, 258, 259, 262, 265. 

P. 

Packer, Rev. J. G., 307. 
" Pall-Mail Gazette," the, no. 
Palmerston, Lord, i34> 270, 335. 
Pare, William, 102, 255, 259. 
Paris Diplomatic Congress, 244. 
Parker, Theodore, 59, 191. 
Pauperism, 19. 
Peel, Sir Robert, 61. 
" Pen and Pencil," the, 70. 
"People's International League," 61. 
Permissive Bill, 1S5, 212. 
Phillips, Wendell, 58, 244, 258,267, 268, 
290. 



"Philosophical Radicals," 58 

Place, Mr., 60, 61. 

Playfair, Dr. Lyon, 76. 

Piimsoll, Mrs. 196. 

Plimsoll Samuel, Memoir, 191 ; also 

67, 84, 141, 178, 1S5. 
Piimsoll, Thomas, 192. 
Population of England, 46. 
" Portrait Gallery" (See Beehive). 
" Post" Boston, quoted, 212. 
Potter, Bazley, 63, 338. 
Potter, George, 63, 94, 127, 128, 184, 

334- 
Primitive Methodists, 289. 
Prince Consort, the, 60. 
" Prince Florestan," 39, 44, 52, 53, 54. 
Protective Policy, 41. 
" Purgatory of Suicides," 124. 
Pusey, Dr., 103. 

" Put Yourself in His Place," 132. 
Pyat, Felix, .270. 



" Radical Reform League," 94. 

Raiiton, E. A-,i92. 

Railton, Hugh, 192. 

Read, Clare, 283. 

Reade, Charles, 132. 

" Reasoner," the, 265, 269. 

" Red Spectre," 44. 

Reform League, 65, 107, 185. 

" Religious Freedom Society," the, 231. 

Republicanism in England, 29, 52, 319, 

327, 349> 35°- 
" Retrospective Review," 39. 
" Reynolds' Newspaper," 54. 
Richard, Rev- Ebenezer, 242. 
Richard, Henry, Memoir, 241. 
Robinson, Mr., 343- 
Rochdale Equitable Pioneers, the, 255 

260, 263. 
Roebuck J. A-, 109, 133. ?34 *35 I S 2 - 

35°. 352- 
Rogers, Mr., 310. 



INDEX. 



373 



Rogers Thorold, 19, 76. 

Romilly, Lord, 109- 

Royal Household, expenses of, 27, 29. 

Ruskm, Jtlin, 162. 

Russell, Lord John, 351, 357. 

"Russell, Scott, 40- 

S- 
Salt, T., 342. 
Sandon, Lord, 355, 356. 
Sankey, I. D., 214. 
Schofield, William, 28. 
School Boards, 184. 
School Societies, National, 353- 
*' Scouring the White Horse," 104- 
Secular Affirmation Act, 272. 
Secularism, 265, 316, 329. 
Shaftesbury, Lord, 198, 329- 
Shaw, Sir C-, 26*, 262. 
Sheil, Arthur Gore, 50- 
Shoemaking, influence of, 330. 
Smalley, G. W., quoted, 33, 65, 203, 361:. 
Smith, Goldwin, quoted, 234. 
Smith, Dr. John P., 182. 
Smith, Justice, 109. 
Smith, Mary, 123. 
Smith, Sydney, 39. 
Smith, W-, 123. 
Smollett, Tobias, 68. 
" Social Economist," the, 266. 
Socialism, 100, 261. 
Solly, Rev. H., 61, 290. 
"Spectator," London, the, 30, 42. 
Spencer, Herbert, 23, 71. 
" Spirit of the Age," the, 266. 
Spitalfields weavers, 306. 
" Standard," London, the, quoted, 30, 

204. 
St. Andre, Chevalier, 101. 
Stanhope, Mr-, 22. 
Stanley, Dr-, 103. 
Stansfeld, James, 58, 82. 
Stein, Baron, 319. 
Stephenson, George, 162, 164, 258. 
b'traw, Jack, 277. 



Strikes, Labt.i. itt. 
Sturge, Joseph, 2.13, 244, ?.\i 
Sumner, Charles, 64 k>6, 19 r 
Sydney, Algernon, 124. 



"Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,'' 57. 

Talbot, R. A- J., 342. 

Talbot, John Y-, 74. 

Taylor, Peter A-, Memoir, q<; : also 

28, 81, 82, 95, 185, 330. 
Taylor, Mrs. P. A-, 70, 
Taylor, Peter A., sen., 56. 
Taylor, Messrs., 6* 
Temperance agitation, the, 214. 
Temple, Dr., 103. 
Tenant Farmers, 283, 293. 
Tenant-Rights Bill, 23. 
Tennant, Mr., 22. 
Thackeray, Miss, 275. 
Thompson, Col. T- P., 56, 57- 
Thompson, John, 84. 
"Times," London, the, quoted, no, 

133, 186, 302. 
Toleration Act, 228. 
"Tom Brown at Oxford," 104- 
" Tom Brown's School-days," 103. 
Trades Unions, 22, 109, 116, 139, 150, 

248, 291, 297, 299, 329, 332, 334. 
Trevelyan, G- O., 95, 141, 178, 194, 

302, 330. 
"Tribune," the N. Y-, 50, 71, 106, 

203, 205, 266, 361. 
Truck Commission, 139. 
Tyler, Wat, 277. 
Tyndall, John, 71. 

U. 

United States, civil war in, 319, 337. 
United States,* policy of England to, 43. 

V. 

Varrautrap, 244. 

Victoria, Queen, 29, 33, 34, 291, 323. 



374 



INDEX. 



Vincent, Ils/ir 
Visschers, 244. 



61, 28^. 2^7 



\^. 



Wales, People of, 241. 

Wales, Prince of, 3. , 34, 51, 59, 78, 86, 

88, .41, 154, 221,291, 311, 323, 349. 
" War Chronicles," 27;- 
Waterlow, Sir Sidney, 342, 343, 
watsoii, James, 61. 
Watts, Charles, 54. 
" Westminster Review," 39, 56. 
White, Mr., 12. 

Whitworth, Benjamin, 341, 342. 
Wilkinson, Mr-, 54. 
William II., King (Rufus), 77. 
William III., King, 279. 
William IV., King, 3?, 312. 



Willing, Jonas, 192. 

Wolseley, Sir Garnet, 218. 

Woman Suffrage, 12, 21, 45, 53, 325. 

Women's Work, 20. 

" Work and Wages," 168. " 

Working-Men's College, 101. 

Wycliffe, John, 279. 



Yates, Edmund, 202. 

" Yorkshire Association of Mechanics' 

Institutes," 90. 
Young, Brigham, 50. 

Z. 



; Zadkiel's Almanac," 54. 



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H 1*3 79 








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